SA国际传媒

On a Monday morning in her office on Newbury Street, of said that for venture capitalists to invest in more diverse founders, 鈥渨e have to drop the idea that a CEO needs to be a braveheart on a white horse.鈥�

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鈥淭he personality of a woman is going to be different than a man, so you have to […] understand that someone can be effective, even if they really aren鈥檛 aggressive,鈥� the managing director of the firm continued. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about opening the door wider.鈥�

Fay is one of two female partners at Glasswing Ventures, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm focuses on artificial intelligence investments. Notably, about 40 percent of the founding teams of the companies Glasswing invests include at least one woman, according to Fay.

female-led venture capital funds like Glasswing, and venture capitalists like Fay, , a nonprofit organization that wants to help more female founders get venture capital, expanded into Boston last month. Fay is part of the steering committee.

鈥檚 expansion shows there鈥檚 both a need and a promise for more venture dollars to go to female founders in the city. So, for this month鈥檚 Boston-focused column, we thought we鈥檇 unpack the dollars raised by teams with at least one woman founder in Greater Boston over time.

First, we鈥檒l do the numbers, then we鈥檒l circle back to Fay to see how it all fits into All Raise鈥檚 mission.

The Numbers

Before we get into the numbers, some caveats. Venture rounds are often prey to reporting delays, and, sometimes, founders are not tagged in SA国际传媒 with gender identifying characteristics. For this reason, we opted for a proportional split chart to help account for any lag in known data.

Housekeeping aside, $979 million dollars have gone to venture capital-backed companies with at least one female founder so far in 2019, according to SA国际传媒 data. Starkly, $1.8 billion dollars went to venture capital companies with all-male founding teams.

To get a more helpful perspective on how (and if) more female founders are getting funded within Greater Boston, let鈥檚 wind back to 2014. The chart below breaks down the percentage break down of the data above.

In 2016, 28 percent of venture capital dollars raised by Greater Boston startups went to companies with at least one female founder. Compared to years prior, 2019 isn鈥檛 at the same level of equality, but it is also isn鈥檛 exactly fair to hold it to the same standards due to possible data reporting delays.听

Fast forward to 2018, and 43 percent of venture capital dollars raised by Greater Boston startups went to companies with at least one female founder. It isn鈥檛 a 50/50 split; however, the percentage is notably high. Globally, about 8 percent of venture dollars have gone to female founders, according to the latest quarterly statistics.听

Its historical progress of venture capital dollars going to underrepresented founders鈥攃oupled with a stark contrast to global averages鈥攊s part of the reason Boston was put on All Raise’s radar in the first place. After all, where better place for a nonprofit to set up a pipeline and network of women in tech than a place that has already taken steps to level the playing field?聽Now, along with the Boston launch, in the Bay Area, New York, and Los Angeles.听

Goals

All Raise has some lofty objectives it aims to achieve. , the organization wants 25 percent of all venture dollars allocated to female-founded companies. It also wants to double the percentage of female partners at venture firms (with funds greater than $25 million) in the United States from 9 percent to 18 percent over the next ten years.听

To do this, one of All Raise鈥檚 flagship efforts has been in creating a database of diverse candidates for venture capital firms to tap into. The organization also has cohorts, where women interested venture positions from associates to general partners can join a 鈥渢ight-knit groups where deep connections trump empty schmoozing and real conversations replace small talk,鈥� .听

According to Glasswing鈥檚 Fay, in Boston, that looks like founder bootcamps, mentorship, and networking opportunities.

Within these efforts, All Raise is intentionally having a conversation beyond just gender, when it comes to shifting pattern recognition in venture funding. 鈥淭here are a lot of women involved with All Raise who are already successful,鈥� she said. Fay also added that men, alongside women, need to be included in the conversation too.

鈥淚f we’re just talking to each other as women to women, then we’re in an echo chamber,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o it is very important for men to also understand what the experiences are, so they can support us. And I can tell you in Boston, the [venture capitalists] who are men here are great.鈥�

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