CHAMPIONING WOMEN IN BUSINESS: A LOOK AT CIC ROTTERDAM’S GENDER DIVERSITY

Gender diversity is essential for driving innovation and growth in the business world, and we are committed to championing women in business for years to come. According to The State of European Tech report’s 2022, the ‘unicorn club’ is overwhelmingly male. This is no surprise - all women teams account for 1% of the funding raised and 15% by teams with both men and women. The vast majority of LP’s funding - 84% - went to teams composed of only men. In terms of founding team gender diversity in the Netherlands - of all that raised funding in the last five years, 10% are all-women, and another 11% have women included in their teams. There is still a lot of work to be done in this field. Therefore, we signed a contract from the Social and Economic Council (SER) that set the goal of housing more than 20% of women entrepreneurs in its community by 2025, which we hit in the summer of 2022. At the end of 2022, we were proud to have 37 women-owned companies, representing a powerful

16% of our member base. Since 20% is a moving target, we have an ongoing focus on the goal.

We also support female-led foundations such as Female Ventures and Voice of All Women, who are paving the way for women in business. To continuously support this goal, we organize events such as the Female Founders event at Upstream Festival, bringing together a dynamic community of more than 100 women entrepreneurs to network, learn, and grow.