NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, December 2, 2013

Unless you spend your days gladhanding at Silicon Valley networking events, getting angel seed funding or VC investment can be tough, especially if you happen to be a female entrepreneur, according to the stats.

For the first half of 2013, women-owned ventures accounted for just 16% of all businesses seeking funding, with 24% of these ladies receiving angel investment, according to the Center for Venture Research. The picture was especially bleak for venture capital funding, with only 7% going to female-led businesses.

“Silicon Valley is mostly white, male engineers,” says Monica Dodi, co-founder of the Women’s Venture Capital Fund which focuses on new ventures in digital media and sustainability. Because VCs have a limited amount of capital, they want to reduce risk which means they tend to “invest in people that look and sound like them.”