INVESTMENT PAIN CONTINUES

Women continue to set up and expand businesses. Yet female founders’ share of funds from backers remains stubbornly low. “There is still a big issue of unconscious bias against women founders,” says Sutin Yang, head of scale-ups at Virgin StartUp, a UK organisation which has pledged to fund equal numbers of male and female entrepreneurs. “Investors tend to be more likely to interrogate a female founder’s business projections and ask questions around downside risk,” Yang adds. As a result, female founders lower their business projections and valuation, and are “less ambitious in their pitch”. Venture capital funding that went to female-led start-ups in the US fell from 2.4% in 2021 to 1.9% last year. But it rose to 17.2% if the management team included at least one man.