SA国际传媒

One year after a comprehensive SA国际传媒 found that 7 percent of partners at the top 100 venture firms globally are women, female venture capitalists say they still have a long way to go to catch up to their male counterparts in the industry.

, who co-founded Foster City, Calif.-based in 2000, is one of two female partners in the firm, which is currently investing out of its $335 million Fund V that closed in Q1 2016. As the co-chair of the National Venture Capital Association’s Inclusion and Diversity Task Force, Mitchell is painfully aware of the underrepresentation of women in the venture capital industry.

鈥淲e [women] still have a ways to go,鈥� Mitchell said. 鈥淏ut I do applaud some firms鈥� efforts to be more diverse in both their hiring and investments.鈥�

She points to , which discussed hiring its first female investment partner, , and the fact that it has invested in companies founded by female entrepreneurs over the past five years. Meanwhile, Costanoa Ventures in March announced a fellowship program for women and 鈥渦nderrepresented minorities.鈥�

In a post outlining the fellowship program, Founder and Managing Partner wrote the following:

鈥淭here is a lot of discussion about the lack of women and underrepresented minorities in venture capital. Many debate if it鈥檚 a problem of bias, pipeline, or other factors, but what we know for sure is the current state isn鈥檛 good enough for the industry or Costanoa.鈥�

Mitchell also points to a December 2016 that had similar results as SA国际传媒鈥檚 study. In that survey of 217 VC firms, only 11 percent of investment partners and equivalents were women.

Stilted Progress Is Being Made

Despite the low numbers, Mitchell believes the environment is slowly becoming more open to female partners at VC firms. Additionally, more women are launching their own funds.

鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing more and more either women starting their own firms, or leaving existing firms to start their own,鈥� she said.

Perhaps one of the most high-profile examples is the case of Aileen Lee, who left Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2012 after 13 years to start her own firm, Cowboy Ventures. Another example is Cindy Padnos, who founded Illuminate Ventures in 2009. Both women went on to add senior male partners to join their teams.

More recently, co-founded Portola Valley, Calif.-based in 2013 with a male partner, Gary Little. Lynn is not daunted by being a minority in a male-dominated venture capital world.

鈥淲omen in venture are having huge exits this year,鈥� she said. 鈥淛ust as good as their male counterparts, but just not as many.鈥�

But she believes changing the gender makeup of venture capital firms will still take some time. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just how the industry has always been, and there hasn鈥檛 been a real push to change it until recently,鈥� Lynn said. 鈥淎lso, what happens is that people tend to hire people that are like themselves. It鈥檚 an unconscious bias in a lot of cases.鈥�

Currently, Lynn is Canvas鈥檚 only female partner, but she鈥檚 hoping to change that soon with a hiring in the near future.

鈥淗iring or having just one female partner is not enough,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou have to hire two or three within a larger firm to really culturally make a difference.鈥�

Lynn also said her last two investments were in female-led companies. (The firm closed a $300 million fund in the fourth quarter of 2016.) 鈥淎 lot of times those entrepreneurs are the ones who go on to be venture capitalists,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd that encourages other women that they too can go do this.鈥�

Women聽Investing In Women

Then there are those who start their own firms with the intention of being exclusively female and investing only in female-run companies.

founded Austin, Texas-based in late 2015 with the intention of investing in startups run by women in the consumer healthcare and sustainable products markets. She doesn鈥檛 feel like her firm is limiting itself with its focus on women 鈥� at least in Fund I. True Wealth last August raised $4.7 million of a targeted $20 million fund and closed on another (undisclosed amount) raise late last year.

鈥淥ur whole strategy is that investing in women-led companies is such an underfunded and undercapitalized opportunity,鈥� Brand said. 鈥淧lus, there鈥檚 such a strong financial correlation with more female leaders correlating to financial outperformance.鈥�

Thus far, True Wealth has not had to go look for deals. Instead, deals have been coming to the firm.

鈥淎 lot of other VC firms are blind to those companies unconsciously. They鈥檙e either not looking at them or the companies aren鈥檛 even coming to them to pitch,鈥� she said. 鈥淪ome women have said they don鈥檛 want to end up having an old white guy telling them what to do on their board. As such, I think we have advantaged deal flow with this strategy since so few funds are proactively focused on this area.鈥�

Brand firmly believes that more female VCs will lead to more female entrepreneurs getting capital. 鈥淲hen women VCs are making investment decisions, they鈥檙e more likely to invest in companies with a woman on the management team, or that are led by a woman CEO,鈥� she said.

What the short-term impact of the above will be isn’t completely clear today, but we’ll continue tracking the industry to see if, and when the numbers change.

via Flickr user聽 under CC BY 2.0. Image has been cropped.