Women founders received only 2.2 percent of U.S. venture capital this year, according to data from Pitchbook.
That number has not budged since last year, and it sheds light on one of the broader gender issues in entrepreneurship — most of the big decision makers are men.
Organizations like EnrichHer, Jane VC and Backstage Capital are working to diversify who venture capital goes to and are bringing women to the forefront of VC funding.
EnRicherHer is a platform that allows women-entrepreneurs to connect directly to investors. Investors can send money to the companies and organizations of their choice directly through the platform. EnrichHer also features chatting options and funding profiles to help users navigate how and with whom they’d like to spend their money.
Jane VC is a women-led VC firm that wants to fund female entrepreneurs. The company has revamped the way that entrepreneurs pitch investors by asking female founders to pitch directly to the firm. Jane VC gives relatively quick responses on whether it wants to move forward in investing and works to facilitate a network of women- entrepreneurs through office hours and events.
Backstage Capital has invested more than $4 million in underrepresented groups including women, people of colors and members of the LGBTQ community.
Although this most recent round of numbers are not much different from before, there is one bright spot. Women are on track to raise a record of amount venture capital this year. Tech Crunch’s Kate Clark has more on this:
In the last ten months, female-founded startups have closed 391 deals worth $2.3 billion, up from $2 billion in 2017. Mixed-gender teams have raised $13.2 billionthis year across 1,346 deals, an increase from $12.7 billion last year.
U.S based startups are on track to raise a record $100B this year.
