We can’t leave Women’s History Month completely in the rear-view mirror without taking a long and hard look at how impossibly difficult it is for women founders to obtain venture capital funding for their early-stage enterprises. COVID-19 was certainly no friend either, leaving 2020 as the worst year in the last five for women. As compiled by Crunchbase (news.crunchbase.com), a paltry 2% of funding went to women-led startups in 2020, a figure which obnoxiously more than quadruples to 9% with a male co-founder but is still an embarrassment. The system is not just biased – it is broken. There is no credible case that can be made that, out of a universe comprising more than half the world’s population and representing more than half of the Associates, Bachelors, Masters AND Doctorates awarded just in the US, women barely represent even one fiftieth of the economic potential of men to investors. Next time the question is asked about how we continue to grow the global economy and unlock the full potential of the capital markets given all the headwinds we face, give this answer – Invest. In. Women… Now. And particularly invest in black, indigenous, and other women of color. [chart from Crunchbase News, © 2020]
