We hear it again and again: the gender financing gap persists. In 2021, 85% of all VC dollars invested around the world went to startups with only men on the founding team, a number that has hardly budged in the past decade. Still, while there has been a lot of research to understand the gap, there has been less research about how investors and accelerators can improve their internal processes to address its causes.
That’s why Village Capital, in collaboration with a consortium of partners – including IFC, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, and academic researchers – conducted a randomized controlled trial to test how investment organizations can reduce bias in how they evaluate startups. We found three strategies that were indeed able to reduce gender bias in the evaluation process and address the undervaluation women-led startups face.
Now, we are excited to share how your investment organization or accelerator can embed these three practical steps into your evaluation and selection processes to reduce gender bias – and help unlock more capital for women-led ventures to help close the gender financing gap.
