One of the advantages of the pandemic has been to have slightly more time to read. Although I am as liable to get addicted to scrolling as the next person and definitely need to exercise my self-discipline muscle, I have learned so much about ESG and female founders over the last few months. This has been enlightening and inspiring!
The market for women is huge.
The She Economy is worth US$13 trillion. With a market this size comes enormous opportunity. Despite this, female founders still struggle to get access to capital, which seems crazy to me.
There are so many incredible female entrepreneurs out there, including Sara Blakely of Spanx, Arrianna Huffington of the HuffPost, Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate, Michelle Romanov of Clearbanc, just to name a few. Women also make up half of the population, so from an investment analysis, it would seem to make sense to invest in products that appeal to women.
Why is it so hard for women to attract investment capital?
A former colleague of mine is a real leader in this space in Asia. Virginia Tan is a former corporate lawyer and the founder of LeanIn China, She Loves Tech, and now her own investment fund, Teja Ventures. In a recent podcast interview with Christoper Marquis of Cornell University, she pointed out that women are early adopters of technology and therefore are a bigger part of the online traffic and have a more mobile workforce.
Investing in women is not a charity
She spoke of the power of impact investing combined with supporting businesses run by women. Women have become the conduits to the "unbanked."
Companies run by women perform better
Morningstar has carried out research that shows that funds that are run by women, or at least have women on the board, perform better than funds that are run only by men.
Funds focused on women
Women are not waiting around for the investment world to catch up and realize what they are missing in terms of returns; they are setting up funds to help female entrepreneurs get started.
SHEO, Hercapital, and Teja Ventures are actively looking to support women with scalable business ideas. SHEO's central thesis is that women can support women and lift each other up.
Many of the best companies in the world were started during recessions. Facebook, which was founded in 2008, is the perfect example. With the positive energy surrounding women in business, I'm excited for the future of female founders. I can't wait to look back in ten years to see the amazing companies that will have been founded by women with support from other women in 2020/2021.
WRITTEN BY
Paula Gibbs