There’s a story from 2016 where two female founders were struggling to secure VC funding in Silicon Valley, couldn’t get meetings with VCs and people weren’t really responding to them. And when they did get meetings, it seemed like they weren’t being taken seriously. So, the two female founders created a third fictitious male co-founder, using that signature on emails to investors.
What are the nuances of fundraising equality? What are the implicit biases and overt challenges that women may encounter while raising money? The Rizing Equality Summit 2024 sought to explore these questions.
Ashwani Singh, Managing Partner at 35North Ventures, opined that while educational institutions, like colleges, have a nearly equal ratio of boys and girls, this is not reflected at the CXO level. Even while there may be enabling structures like pregnancy leaves or menstrual leaves, there may still not be societal acceptance and it may still not be part of the norm. Terms like “one-man army” may further reinforce prejudice, even if the sole founder of a startup were female. Whilst fundraising, women may worry about whether they ought to be assertive or tone it down. Singh, also, remarked that the more diverse the management team is, the better decision-making, so it is imperative that diversity not be used as a prop or a crutch; it should be part of the mainstream.
Lathika Pai, Country Head, Venture Capital & Private Equity Partnerships at Microsoft, stated that it may not always be VC bias, there may be a degree of diffidence that women founders have that hinders the fundraising process. When a startup has a male founder and a female founder and they’re at a pitch or a presentation, the male co-founder might speak up, while the female co-founder may not, even though they’re both equally qualified. Therefore, women would have to help themselves before pointing the finger at investors. Pai also celebrates 30 out of 140 unicorns in India having female founders and remarks that investors are out there looking for solid business plans. She advises aspiring and current female entrepreneurs looking to raise capital to believe in their business plan, be confident in how they grow the business, showcase confidence in giving returns, have the agility to ride the ups and downs, go out there and own one’s business, being clear about one’s competition and more. So, when biases exist, one must prepare for it.
Rahul Gupta, Founder & Managing Partner at ValuAble, remarked that discrimination may be rooted and ensconced in the way society operates. For instance, boys and girls may play together, but as they get a little older, there seems to be an unspoken bias preventing girls from taking part in activities typically considered “masculine”. So, conditioning at the ground level leads to fallouts at every new level. The ground ought to belong to everyone, so there may not be a need to find separate cohorts; people could co-exist and bring their own strengths and vulnerabilities. Gupta opines that if one puts forth a commitment to accountability, people would seldom not give that authority. And so, he is trying to prop up a parameter called “culture”.
To hear the whole conversation:
So, in 2024, what would fundraising equality look like?
