A recent study by Babson College, revealed some very interesting information about women entrepreneurs and their success in getting venture funding.
Here’s a couple of key excerpts:
“In general, women entrepreneurs are majority owners of an estimated ten million businesses, or, as currently reported by the US Small Business Administration (SBA), 36 percent of all businesses in the United States.”
“However, only 2.7% of the companies, or 183 of 6,517 companies receiving venture capital funding during this period, had a woman CEO.”
“The total number of women partners in venture capital firms declined significantly since 1999 from 10% to 6%. At the time of this report, 139 of the venture capital firms had women partners.”
These three facts are very revealing to me. Many of you have been introduced to the concept of a “tribe” in a college course of from the books Tribes or Tribal Leadership. A tribe is group of people who have some sort of affiliation and gain some sort of benefit from the affiliation. I would assert that tribal associations currently have a large place in venture funding – white men are more likely to fund other white men, Indian men are more likely to fund Indian men, and women are more likely to fund women.
And if you follow my assertion, the fact that the total number of women partners in venture capital has declined from 10% to 6% does not bode well for women CEOs seeking venture capital. How to fix this? Get more women into venture capital. Easier said than done.
