Gender equality is the fifth SDG goal and seeks to address the unfair and unequal treatment meted out on females due to their gender.
This seems to be hitting an all-time low despite the level of civilization and access to technology.
As several factors seem to be fighting against the realization of the goal and this isn’t because women are not putting in the work.
Before now, it was mainly women struggling in the corporate world. Now they are fighting to get their startups funded as seen in a report made by Briter Bridges, and the World Bank’s Africa Gender Lab (GIL).
The report states that since 2003, only three percent of startup funding has gone to an all-female founding startup as compared to the percentage gotten by an all-male founding startup getting a whooping seventy-six percent of funds.
This leaves intending female founders skeptical of the support they’d get. Another fact we wouldn’t fail to mention here is the role of the recent pandemic.
Before the pandemic, in 2019, female startups funding rose a bit but that fell after the pandemic. We also wouldn’t fail to recognize that pandemic affected other sectors and goals too.
However, while these other sectors are picking up and recovering from the effect of the pandemic, the state of funding for all female-founding startups remains the same.
From reports of those that even get funded, they get minimalist funds. All these constitute barrels of concern.
Why do women get less startup funding?
Most people think this happens because venture capital firms have men as decision-makers and as a result of this no one speaks for the female when these decisions are being taken.
A female founder once shared how investors told her that the business idea is great with incredible metrics and growth paths but they are not just passionate about the entire idea because it solves women’s issues.
Now, this is just a case in thousands of cases worldwide.
Another reason why an all-female founding startup gets less funding was captured in a TED talk by Kanze in 2017.
It sheds light on how the female founders get questions different from that of their male counterparts.
Kanze in her speech says that while male founders were asked questions that put them in good spots, where they promote their ideas, the female founders were faced with questions that put them on the defensive which doesn’t give them much opportunity to promote their idea.
This means the men were asked questions on the possibilities their startup held while the female founders were mainly asked questions on what they would do to prevent their startup from failing.
Kanze in her research discovered that the questions males got led to more funding opportunities while preventive-coded questions yielded preventive responses to the investors too for the females.
Now, we’ve highlighted some of the underlying factors of why an all-female founder gets less funding. Stopping here wouldn’t be good, so here are our proposed solutions.
Females should get involved in venture capital firms, joining the decision process, because, over time, it’s been observed that companies with female executives and leaders tend to hire more female staff. This can be replicated in the funding world.
Also when VCs ask questions during pitches, it should be fashioned similarly to that asked the male. Females on their part should also acquire the skill of answering without going on the defensive no matter how it is phrased, hence always putting their startup best foot forward.
These are some ways to improve the current state of less funding for all-female founding startups.
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