top | item 24867322

Billions flood the Nordics but female founders just receive 1.3% of VC funding

23 points| punnerud | 5 years ago |sifted.eu | reply

64 comments

order
[+] subtypefiddler|5 years ago|reply
When reading the source https://my.visme.co/view/01070kx3-unconventional-ventures-no... the divide goes:

Gender | % Companies (#) | % Funding

All men | 85 (1473) | 88.81

All women| 6.35 (110) | 2.21

Mixed | 8.66 (150) | 8.98

Notes:

- There is no disparity when it comes to number of rounds

- The trend is decrease in funding from all men teams (-10 points compared to 2019) and increase mostly for mixed teams (+10 points) and women (+2 points) (their numbers don't add up to 100...)

[+] BiteCode_dev|5 years ago|reply
Is there an insight on why?

Is it because VC were willing to give less to them because they were women? That there were less well connected? That their negotiation skills didn't match up? That the nature of the projects they choose were perceived as less attractive?

Lots of possible reasons here, and the solutions to choose can be very different depending of the causes.

[+] ominous|5 years ago|reply
The article manages to use "just receive 1.3% of VC funding" without stating what amount would warrant no usage of "just". It would help if these kind of equity driven articles made the effort of not counting on the naive heart of the reader to understand what is being said.

Sure, a value is less than another value and a sex difference is mentioned, so the reader is put on the spot to immediately understand that the values should be different. But how different?

Might as well count if there's an imbalance on north-south vs east-west crossings by sex on a city center, and then hope someone feels the need to conclude "but of course, they should be the same!".

[+] shalmanese|5 years ago|reply
What do you think the value would be that wouldn't warrant putting just? How much do you think is the "fair" amount women should receive?
[+] callamdelaney|5 years ago|reply
This is a useless statistic. What proportion of startups are founded by women? Only with this statistic can we draw a fair conclusion - and it's notably missing from the entire article..
[+] Rick1|5 years ago|reply
Well, it's useless if the purpose is to inform. If on the other hand the purpose is to create outrage...
[+] supergirl|5 years ago|reply
> What proportion of startups are founded by women? Only with this statistic can we draw a fair conclusion

The conclusion is pretty clear and damning for Nordic countries: for WHATEVER reasons women don't get funding. You can complain that the cause is not fully explained by these statistics. But the conclusion is pretty clear.

Btw, the article does try to explain the numbers more:

> All male teams made up 83% of the startups but they raised 93% of total funding, which means that they raised larger sums.

> For all-female teams, the opposite was true. On top of the female-founded startups finding it difficult to raise any money at all, the 6% of startups that did, only received 1.3% of the funding.

I only skimmed the article. I'm not sure if these numbers show how many women founders got NO funding. I think it's common sense that women founders are very rare. But I don't see how you can take consolation in this explanation.

[+] gryzzly|5 years ago|reply
read two paragraphs, make an effort

> All male teams made up 83% of the startups but they raised 93% of total funding, which means that they raised larger sums.

[+] daleharvey|5 years ago|reply
If your definition of fairness is "we created an environment so toxic to an entire gender that they don't participate in it" Then sure.
[+] ponker|5 years ago|reply
Would be interesting to see this data by sector. Female founders are much more prevalent in some sectors (eCommerce, Health) than others (Infrastructure, Blockchain)
[+] plafl|5 years ago|reply
There is a graph of sectors when at least one founder is female but there is no equivalent data for all male founders so I cannot compare
[+] treelovinhippie|5 years ago|reply
Super misleading.

Here's the actual stats pulled from the article:

* 83% of startups were all-male and got 93% of funding.

* 6% of startups were all-female and got 1.3% of funding.

* 11% of startups were mixed and got 5.7% of funding.

Still an imbalance but paints a very different picture. Clearly the industry needs to attract more women generally before you start crying inequity.

[+] subtypefiddler|5 years ago|reply
The article reads "On top of the female-founded startups finding it difficult to raise any money at all, the 6% of startups that did, only received 1.3% of the funding.".

I understand it as 6% of female-founded startups managed to raise money and they received 1.3% of total founding, rather than 6% of startups were all-female.

[+] pletnes|5 years ago|reply
6% get 1.3% => 5x too little. I think we can cry a little.
[+] daleharvey|5 years ago|reply
The fact that this very well paid prestigious industry doesn't "attract" more women is a very clear sign of inequality.
[+] thinkingemote|5 years ago|reply
Gender equality paradox should tell us that in less gender equal societies women founders should get more funding.

Anyone know if that study has been done?

[+] danishdev|5 years ago|reply
Where's the bad part of this statistic?
[+] bergstromm466|5 years ago|reply
Why? Because you think women shouldn't get funding?
[+] mkl95|5 years ago|reply
The article seems to imply gender inequality is a major issue in Nordic countries. The truth is they are light years ahead of their European neighbours in the matter.
[+] thinkingemote|5 years ago|reply
Gender equality paradox can explain this. But I'm not sure it applies to funding.
[+] supergirl|5 years ago|reply
so sad that people nitpick on this article, trying to brush it off.

for WHATEVER reasons, women got only 1% of total funding. is that not bad by itself? does it matter that the reason is that there were few women to begin with? that makes it even worse. at least if VC bias was the only cause then this bias would be confined to one domain and easier to fix.

[+] oytis|5 years ago|reply
If you believe that being a startup founder is an inherently good thing, then it's bad. But the former is not self-evident. Some pointed out that risk-weighted income of a startup founder might lower than that of someone on a conventional full-time job.
[+] mr_woozy|5 years ago|reply
are you even bothering to read and understand the comments here?