Female Partners Remain Small Fraction of VC Firms

Only 8 percent of partners with the authority to invest at 2,300 micro- and venture capital (VC) firms are women (and only 7 percent of the top 100 firms), according to CrunchBase Women in Venture, a new report providing a detailed snapshot of the state of female investors and founders. The report finds of 54 corporate VC divisions and 101 accelerators, 12 percent of partners were female. The report did find some possible signs of improvement; among 826 VC firms with “deep teams,” 22 percent of lower-titled employees are women, suggesting that opportunities for promotion to partner may yield better balance, and among new micro- and VC firms in the last three years, 16 percent, or 20 of 125, had at least one female partner—double the rate among existing firms. Women in Venture also examined the amount of funding going to companies with at least one female founder and reports that from 2010-2015, 10 percent, or $31.5 billion, of VC funding went to companies with at least one female founder, compared to 17 percent, or $2.4 billion, of seed funding. The report examined whether firms with female investors were more likely to invest in startups with female founders and found no real evidence of this connection.