February 28, 2023
New Toolkit Helps Investors Improve Evaluations and Unlock More Opportunities for Women-led Startups
In 2021, 85 percent of global VC funding went to startups with only men on the founding team. In emerging markets, research shows that only 11 percent of seed funding goes to companies with a woman in their founding team. This gender financing gap negatively impacts the entire VC ecosystem, from women-led startups, which lack capital to scale, to investors, who leave significant opportunities for returns on the table. The data suggest that adding three steps into evaluation frameworks can help investors and accelerators conduct more consistent, comprehensive, and data-driven evaluations across all startups, unlocking more opportunities for women-led companies. Washington D.C., February 28, 2023 - Village Capital, in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), launched a new toolkit designed to help investors and accelerators adapt their due diligence process to evaluate startups more accurately and equitably.