Alexsis De Raadt St James Levelling the entrepreneurial playing field

When it comes to diversity in entrepreneurship, it’s clear that, as a society, we still have a long way to go. After some promising gains in 2019, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has seen a decline in the growth rate of total capital invested in female-founded and minority-founded startups. California-based venture capitalist Alexsis De Raadt St James has already made impressive strides when it comes to women’s equality in STEM, she’s made it her mission to get the diversity balance in entrepreneurship right.

As Founder and Chairperson of The Althea Foundation, Alexsis is no stranger to social challenges. The notfor-profit organisation uses a venture model to provide financial and non-financial support to people and initiatives that have been overlooked or underfunded, such as advancing gender equality and funding minorities in STEM.

Seven years ago, The Althea Foundation was the first funder of WE Innovate – the Imperial Enterprise Lab’s flagship programme for women entrepreneurs. Then called the Imperial Althea Programme, it was the first women’s entrepreneurship programme of its kind in the UK. The Althea Foundation has recently committed to sponsoring WE Innovate for the next three years. We asked Alexsis for her views on expanding diversity in STEM and how the WE Innovate initiative advances its mission.

What are the challenges facing women entrepreneurs?

The challenges have consistently been the same, a lack of funding – this hasn’t improved as we had hoped over the past ten years. I think 2021 is going to remain a difficult year for women because in 2020 funding levels declined overall for women. Female entrepreneurs had slowly been catching up to men raising investment rounds in 2019, but in 2020 the amounts raised went back two or three per cent. Funding remains a major barrier for women creating companies, especially in STEM. While I feel very strongly about female founders, I feel just as strongly about minority groups or minority ethnicities who want to be entrepreneurs. I just did a masterclass at Oxford University’s, The Foundry, or OXFO, highlighting the importance of all founders being included in the envelope of innovation– we need to keep the focus on the fact that female founders and minority entrepreneurs still find it very difficult to start companies due to a lack of funding.

You’re an investor. How did you get into this?

Before I started Merian Ventures, I had worked in male-dominated industries, like energy and banking where there are traditionally fewer women. However, the lack of women was even more striking when I started investing in technology. Women make up over 50 percent of all college graduates in the US and the UK – but in 2019 received less than 10 percent of venture capital funding in the US and UK. That was my motivation – I wanted to make it easier for women, and minorities, with STEM aspirations, to create companies and technologies they believed they could build.

“What is now proved was once only imagined.”

William Blake

The Althea Foundation has done inspiring work, not only in supporting more women in STEM and entrepreneurship, but in many other areas. What were the drivers behind starting it?

I started the foundation 18 years ago when I had a personal tragedy that changed my life. I had two young children and an intense corporate role and realised, I needed, and wanted to change how I spent my time. I wanted to focus on areas where I believed I had a unique perspective and network. Since we started the foundation, we have deployed millions of dollars in areas that have historically been underfunded by donors and governments like equality in STEM and affordable mental health care treatment. Our proximity to Silicon Valley was pivotal to our success, it assured our access to talent and technology. That still remains the case.

You were a founder and funder of the inaugural WE Innovate programme at Imperial. Why was a women’s entrepreneurship programme needed and why was Imperial the place to launch it?

I was based in San Francisco and was looking for a university setting where I could replicate one of the most successful startup ecosystem in the world –

What Alexsis looks for in a founder

• Previous experience in their sector (e.g., university studies or corporate) • A strong understanding of the problem they’re solving • The confidence to pitch effectively • Proficient communication skills to explain their story • Coachability Silicon Valley. I wanted to find a university that had all the components of Silicon Valley’s network effect. I wanted to create something like Stanford University’s StartX accelerator, an extraordinary ecosystem of talent and professional support. Imperial was an obvious choice. The College had its first female president, Professor Alice Gast, and all the other key components necessary to attract the best talent in the world – worldclass instructors, researchers and labs, a medical school, business school, excellence in deep tech engineering and computing and a design school. We wanted WE Innovate to be a platform to highlight the fact that women wanted to create and innovate as much as men. I think seven years later, we can say our attempt to create a professional and creative space for entrepreneurs has been successful. Our goal was to create the United Nations of innovation in a dynamic microcosm, where men and women could dream, create and solve realworld problems. WE Innovate has succeeded far beyond our expectations.

Earlier this year you coauthored an opinion piece in The Daily Telegraph entitled ‘Women risk being left behind by the recovery’. Why is this the case and what can be done to rectify it?

We know that during the

COVID-19 pandemic, 77 per cent of frontline NHS healthcare workers in the UK were women, meaning women stepped up to treat the virus. Statistically they contributed more to the survival of people and to keep the economy afloat. We also know that the women who stayed in their professional roles during 2020 suffered a lack of earning disproportionate to men. 20 per cent of women who were employed suffered job losses and earning cuts compared with 13 per cent of men. Further to that, we know that 47 per cent of mothers were more likely to quit or lose their job because they were the primary caregivers. This means that mothers who were entrepreneurs, or in the startup world before COVID may not go back to work, as many employers cut back post-pandemic. Female hiring reached its lowest point in April 2021 – it fell to 41.5 per cent compared with 45.6 per cent in 2019. This is troubling because women were already behind men when it comes to starting a company. The additional pressure on job security means many women will have lost the freedom to do anything other than focus on their immediate needs; childcare and working when they can.

In the article you mention that digital and tech companies have done well in the last year. As these are male-dominated industries, do you think the gap has widened and women have been left behind?

If we look at startups globally in 2020, female founders represent only 2 per cent, whereas in 2019 it was three per cent. This is important because you need to have women and minorities participating equally to create an

Seven years of WE Innovate 400

Over 400 women supported

59

More than 59 women-led ventures incorporated

£16M

£16m of funding raised by WE Innovate alumni

17

17 external awards won

innovative network effect. If tech and engineering-led companies don’t problem solve with a more diverse workforce, they can’t appreciate the level of contribution that’s missing. We’re making progress but it’s far too slow to be impactful. More funding must go into accelerators like WE Innovate to increase the pipeline of female entrepreneurs.

How would you inspire the male tech community to get more women into these positions?

The problem is investors fund entrepreneurs in front of them, if 95% of the investors are male and 95%, of the entrepreneurs are male, the same people get funded and the network effect has a strong bias to the familiar. In order to break the cycle, we need more women investors and more females entering the tech ecosystem. There has to be parity and that must start with funding women and monitories to the same extent as men. I’d love to see a female founder lead a major technology company, all of which are currently founded by men – technology should be genderless.

You had the difficult job of being on this year’s WE Innovate judging panel. What did you think of the teams?

The teams did an extraordinary job! I didn’t know what to expect given the challenges of the pandemic. To my delight, it was everything I’d hoped it would be, and more. We saw entrepreneurs’ step-up and tackle coming out of the pandemic. I don’t think these innovations would’ve happened the way they happened had we not faced this global challenge. All of the judges were impressed.

The Althea Foundation has committed to funding WE Innovate for the next three years. What made you take the decision to fund the programme?

I was motivated to commit to three years of funding given the challenges of COVID. It’s important women are given a strong advantage coming out of COVID. We want them to be inspired to start companies – it’s essential for the economy and the future of society. I’ve also been impressed by the level of diversity that WE Innovate has been able to attract – we want to make sure the future of innovation is as diverse as possible.

What do you think the future has in store for WE Innovate?

I see WE Innovate continuing to produce the same high quality female founders that it’s doing now. I’d like to see it scale over the next ten years, and become a core part of the College. The country and economy need to be as competitive as possible. If women are going to catch-up after COVID-19, they need a platform like WE Innovate to be launched.

“WE Innovate attracts the best talent … and that talent is often female founders from a minority background. We attract talent without barriers.”

Introducing WE Accelerate

Following the success of WE Innovate, Imperial Enterprise Lab continues to support women entrepreneurs in their next chapter with a brand new initiative – WE Accelerate.

It will target women-led ventures working on cuttingedge technology and innovative ideas at pre-seed stage. Successful ventures must have tested their prototypes and demonstrated significant customer validation. Read about this year’s WE Innovate winner on page 06.

To see the support and initiatives you could access as part of the Imperial Enterprise Lab’s WE Innovate and WE Accelerate programmes, visit:

If you could give one bit of advice to young women, what would it be?

Don’t let the imposter syndrome stop you from building the technology or the company that should be built. Imposter syndrome is real for many people and a challenge for female founders and minority founders. It’s the constant feeling that you shouldn’t be there, someone else should be – those thoughts get re-enforced through the lack of funding and role models. The constant second guessing and fear of failure holds so many talented people back. Just because 95 per cent of the market might not look like you, it doesn’t mean you don’t belong there. When I talk about imposter syndrome, I quote the poet William Blake: “What is now proved was once only imagined.” Female and minority founders have the same right to imagine, innovate, create and contribute– no one needs to give them permission.