Supporting Our Female Founders

The UK’s female leaders have been tenacious in their response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. While physical doors may be closed for the foreseeable future, digital opportunities are opening up. 
 
In this uncharted territory, networks of female mentors have become more important than ever. As we highlighted in our Mentoring Matters report, mentoring is one of the best ways women can help other women, especially through a crisis. Virtual events have become a means to connect female founders and a source of advice and support. Instant messaging tools like Slack and Whatsapp as well as video conferencing tools like Zoom have taken centre stage as tools to assist female leaders to maintain morale and sustain business operations. 
 
In this newsletter, we will be covering the Government support and grants you should know about. We will also be sharing some upcoming webinar series and online events that you may be interested in, as well as news highlights we think might support you and help to drive your business forward after lockdown. 

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
 
We know that financial help is vital to help support our female leaders who are struggling with the challenges of the coronavirus outbreak. The UK Government has created a new Coronavirus Business Support Hub. Here are some of the schemes on offer to help you and your business cope. We will be updating you on new schemes and changes to the schemes in our policy updates. 

1. Bounce Back Loans
 
This week, the UK Government announced the Bounce Back Loan scheme. The scheme will be delivered through a network of accredited lenders and help small and medium-sized businesses borrow up to £50,000 or 25% of turnover, whichever is lower. The scheme is not available yet. It will launch on 4 May 2020.

2. Coronavirus Business Interruption Scheme
 
Banks are helping SMEs by providing the financial backing they need through the government-backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Scheme (CBILS). CBILS is a term loan product offered in conjunction with the UK Government and the British Business Bank. A government guarantee is issued in favour of the lender, which allows banks to consider lending to viable businesses affected by coronavirus. 
 
The scheme is designed to support UK SMEs with a turnover of less than £45 million. You can find out more details and check your eligibility for the scheme here. 
 
For businesses with turnover greater than £45 million, you may be able to obtain the financial backing you need through a Coronavirus large business interruption loan.
 
Barclays is one of the accredited lenders. You can find out more here.
 
3. Support for our Start-ups
 
The UK Government has announced a £1.25 billion package to support start-ups through coronavirus. The Government’s Future Fund will issue convertible loans of between £125,000 and £5 million to startups seeking to bridge funding for working capital purposes. 
 
The funding must be matched by private investors and the Government will provide no more than 50% of the funding. The loans will convert to equity at the next fundraising round at a 20% discount, or a higher rate if the private investor demands it. The scheme will launch in May and remain open until September. You can find out the full details here.
 
4. Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
 
The UK Government is also providing support through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, reimbursing 80% wages, up to £2,500 per month, for employees on temporary leave (Furlough) due to coronavirus. Any entity with a UK payroll can apply, including businesses, charities, recruitment agencies and public authorities. 
 
The Scheme will be backdated to 1 March and available for at least three months. The online service was launched last Monday.
 
5. Self-employment Income Support Scheme
 
Self-employed people are eligible for a taxable grant, worth up to 80% of their average monthly profit over the last three years, up to £2,500 per month, for at least the next three months. You can find out more details about the scheme here.
 
6. Statutory Sick Pay
 
The cost of providing 14 days of Statutory Sick Pay per employee will be refunded by the Government in full to businesses with fewer than 250 employees. This will provide two million businesses with up to £2 billion to cover the costs of large-scale sick leave.

BARCLAYS SUPPORT AND OPPORTUNITIES 
 
1. Barclay Coronavirus Support Hub 
 
The Barclays coronavirus support hub provides the latest information, tools and guidance to support businesses throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This hub includes information about Barclays’ products, webinars, Facebook live events and more information on how to access the government schemes. 
 
There is also an updated FAQs section on this hub, which provides the latest information for businesses. 
 
2. Barclays webinars 
 
You may wish to register here for an upcoming Business Resilience through coronavirus webinar looking at the challenges and support businesses require throughout this period. 
 
Alternatively, to find out more about the latest UK Government support packages for startups and scaleups, register for this webinar later today at 2pm with the Barclays team. 

This week, Juliet Rogan explains in a short video guide to Barclays Eagle Lab how the UK Government’s Future Fund will work. She looks at some of the details including convertible loan notes, interest rates and conversion processes. 
 
3. Checklist for Businesses - Dealing with coronavirus disruption 
 
Barclays has put together a checklist with practical guidance and useful resources to support you and your coronavirus business planning. You can check out the checklist here.
 
4. Female Founders Forum - 2020 Events
 
We are launching regional roundtable Eagle Lab events across the UK. It is an ambitious, far-reaching programme that will bring our tried and tested formula of successful think tank events from London to Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Southampton, Leeds and Newcastle. 
 
We will address four “scale-up” topics, with each roundtable focusing on a particular theme and provide you with more details about the events in our upcoming newsletters. 
 
The first event is due to kick off in September and will either be a physical or digital event, depending on local conditions and the lockdown. 
 
If any of these locations are convenient for you, or you know of any female leaders in these regions, we would like to get in contact. Please get in touch or pass on my details jess@tenentrepreneurs.org.
 
5. DIT Global Entrepreneurship webinars 
 
The Department of International Trade (DIT) is offering free webinars to UK Companies with experts presenting for 25 minutes and answering your questions to help you find solutions to the issues you are facing. You can sign up for the upcoming webinars here and view the previously recorded webinars here
 
FEMALE FOUNDER HIGHLIGHTS
 
Our Member Debbie Wosskow is taking AllBright's services online, with a series of new digital events aimed at turning self-isolation into career development. Debbie recently spoke with Monocle, urging women to “take on an entrepreneurial mindset”, discussing how this has enabled Allbright to pivot in real time and how other female led businesses can do the same.
 
Alexandra Daly, one of our Members and founder of AA Advisors, is developing digital solutions, including a series of podcasts, to assist clients as they seek to maintain dialogue with investors. Alexandra recently spoke with Private Equity Wire about how “people are hungry for information, but feel physically isolated due to Covid-19”. In Alexandra’s view, podcasts to communicate with LPs will be used by managers over the long term. Looking to the revival stage after the coronavirus pandemic, Alexandra discusses how she sees podcasts as a way to streamline the introductory process and could be used as an efficient way to raise capital.
 
Our Member, Annabel Karmel, whose children’s recipes are prepared by the Yum Yum Food Company, has set up a campaign to supply free, good quality food to NHS workers and vulnerable people.
 
Leah Hutcheon, founder of Appointedd, an online booking and business management software firm, is offering SMEs free access to their products to deal with clients and promote social distancing measures. Leah has been impacted by the crisis and wanted to “support those small businesses who had been worst affected”. 
 
Journolink, a business co-founded by Gemma Guise, is providing free services to SMEs to share their stories about how they are coping with the challenges of Covid-19 with journalists and broadcasters.
 
We want to inspire female entrepreneurs across the UK. Do you know any inspiring female entrepreneurs? Send them through to jess@tenentrepeneurs.org.

We will be sending through our newsletter every two weeks. If you share content with the hashtag #femalefounderforum, we will retweet you or repost it.

Subscribe to out Female Founders Forum email here.

Reaching out

Fewer than one in five equity investments made in 2018 went to startups with at least one female founder. As a result, women are under-represented in high-growth entrepreneurship. The equity funding gap has myriad causes, from a lack of role models and mentoring to biases in the investment industry. As VC investors often rely on referrals and face-to-face introductions, access to networking opportunities could be a powerful tool for closing the gap.

However, a new study from Sabrina Howell and Ramana Nanda finds simply expanding networking opportunities by exposing female entrepreneurs to more VCs isn’t sufficient to solve the problem.

To test the idea, they looked at Harvard Business School’s (HBS) New Venture Competition (NVC).

“In the first round of the NVC, each team is assigned to one of about 15 panels, each composed of about six judges. Having delivered a pitch to the judges and answered their questions, the participants are in a position to reach out to the judges after the competition, leveraging the connection to secure financing for their ventures. The competition does not, however, explicitly encourage such follow-up. The core dataset for our analysis consists of comprehensive team and judging information for HBS NVCs held between 2000 and 2015, comprising 964 participants. 

Our research design exploits random variations in the number of VC judges across panels, which arises from the way judges are allocated to panels in the NVC. Specifically, assignment is random conditional on sector, which is to some degree taken into account.”

If exposure to venture capital was enough to close the gap, then we’d expect the students exposed to more VC judges to be more likely to get equity funding. But Howell and Nanda found that exposure to VCs only boosted VC-backed entrepreneurship among male students.

Why does exposure to VCs help men, but not women? Men were twice as likely as women to “proactively reach out to VC investors” after the competition. Interestingly, the researchers find VCs are no more likely to respond to male entrepreneurs reaching out to them. Similarly, VCs reached out to men and women at the same rate. They also find little evidence of explicit bias from VCs.

“We do not find obvious evidence of explicit bias by male VCs against female participants in our sample. In addition to VCs responding to outreach equally by participant gender, we show that the private scores of VC judges are in fact slightly lower for male-led ventures than for women-led ventures. Also, while there are too few female VC judges to establish precise effects by a judge’s gender, we do not find evidence that female VC judges are differentially beneficial for female participants. Still, less observable discrimination may be at play, and the lack of outreach by women could reflect expectations of bias or harassment.”

Two key things need to happen to narrow the gap. First, female founders should be encouraged to reach out more. To that end, mentoring and networking may help build confidence. Second, organisations like accelerators should take a more hands-on approach to facilitating networking opportunities. It’s not enough to simply expect people to send emails after events. Closing the gap will require more than exposure alone.

Good news – and bad – for women on boards

Regardless of the issue in question, public discourse usually follows a similar pattern. 

Take female representation in business. The status quo is challenged (“why don’t we see more women in senior level roles?”) and momentum gathers for tackling it (“we need more women on boards!”). But then a backlash ensues (“don’t we believe in a meritocracy?”). 

What happens from there can depend on the subject matter. Laurence Fox’s Question Time spectacle suggested “anti-woke” celebrities are threatening the liberal consensus. As one author observed in the Guardian last week, “progressives need to wise up to the fact that they are losing the argument and decide what to do in response”. 

In the case of women in the workplace, Amber Rudd wrote an insightful editorial in The Sunday Times that neatly summarised where we are now. 

It’s all very well, the former Cabinet minister wrote, to suggest that we want the best person for the job regardless of gender, race or ethnicity. But if the best candidate is repeatedly a man, “it has to be challenged. It can’t be a coincidence every time.”

Rudd pivots the debate towards the benefits of diversity. It fosters a “broader mix of experience and priorities, leading to better outcomes.” And in politics, “no one is going to fight for women like a woman”. Hear hear. Rudd writes in the context of the forthcoming reshuffle and the rumours that half of the women in Cabinet may lose their jobs.

But with the news last week that one in three board positions at the UK’s biggest companies is now held by a woman, Rudd’s comments could equally be applied to business. The Hampton-Alexander Review found that 349 women currently sit on the boards at FTSE 100 firms. 

Not only will increased representation help tackle unconscious bias and gender stereotypes around what a leader should look like, but if Rudd is right, these women will commit to boosting other women in business. This desire to pay it forward is apparent in the Female Founders Forum, where members give up precious time to champion, advise and even mentor fledgling female entrepreneurs.

Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom was right to point out that businesses had achieved this target voluntarily and without the need for legislation or fines. Perhaps the spotlight on diversity alone has changed the behaviour of big firms. Countless studies have found that it fosters innovation, creativity and empathy in ways that homogeneous environments seldom do. 

Both Rudd and Leadsom have been criticised in a vitriolic, asinine article that insolently dismisses the role diversity can play in avoiding groupthink, ignores the importance of role models, and paternalistically seeks to tell women what they want – especially when they become mothers.

We need reasoned debate, because all is not rosy. There remains a lack of women in senior and executive roles: they make up just 15% of finance directors, for example. 33% isn’t 50%. But rather than cry foul over discrimination, or shrug nonchalantly (or write deplorable blogs) when there is still a way to go before we achieve gender equality in the leadership of British firms, we should strive for balanced discourse that at once accepts progress made, and work yet to do.

Read more about the Hampton-Alexander Review here. And our views on Women in Leadership here and here.

Startup Manifesto: Utilise private coding schools as lifelong learning providers

Policy 7: Utilise private coding schools as lifelong learning providers

In collaboration with The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), we have produced a manifesto to make Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business. It features 21 policies across three key policy areas: access to talent, access to investment, and regulation. Over December, we’ll be sharing one policy every day. To read the full manifesto, click here.

It’s no secret that there is a real digital skills shortage here in the UK. Tech companies are starting to feel the squeeze already with one study suggesting the country is losing out on £63bn a year because companies are struggling to find people with adequate digital skills. 

Better education helped power economic growth in the 19th and 20th centuries, and efforts to modernise the national curriculum to include coding – as well as through digital T-Levels – have been extremely welcome. But addressing the digital literacy and employability of 5-18 year olds is only one facet to ensuring an adequate talent pipeline. 

Private coding schools are a widely untapped resource that have a proven track record of turning novices into fully qualified coders in just 12 weeks. We should leverage their success by putting them on a more formal footing with the current education system. Allowing coding schools, and their prospective students, to tap into government funding would ensure that it’s not just those in traditional education that have access to digital skills training opportunities. 

Taken alongside the National Retraining Scheme, private coding schools can play a crucial role in ensuring that the labour market evolves alongside the skills demand. The next government should explore ways of harnessing the success of our coding schools, as they can provide invaluable mid-career education and help to upskill and reskill sections of the workforce within a short time frame. This will ensure the current and future workforce have the necessary skills.

Startup Manifesto: Support more women to start and scale businesses

Policy 6: Support more women to start and scale businesses

In collaboration with The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), we have produced a manifesto to make Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business. It features 21 policies across three key policy areas: access to talent, access to investment, and regulation. Over December, we’ll be sharing one policy every day. To read the full manifesto, click here.

Women have made great strides in entrepreneurship this past decade. In 2011, 11% of startups that raised equity investment for the first time were female founded. By 2018, the figure had almost doubled to 21%. Once funded, women-led businesses are just as likely to secure second and third rounds of financing. 

Barriers to participation and growth persist, however. Just one in five business owners is female and women-led firms are underrepresented in those sectors most likely to scale (e.g. tech and IP-based businesses). Studies suggest they are held back by three factors: access to finance, risk aversion, and access to networks.

We offer three recommendations to ensure more women start and scale businesses. First, we need to tackle STEM drop-off rates by gathering more data, consulting with schools and universities to examine the role of socialisation in the disparity, and examining how careers guidance could inform and tackle gender stereotypes. 

Second, we should ensure the Minister for Women and Equalities has female entrepreneurship in their remit, and encourage MPs and Ministers to open the doors to Number 10 and the House of Commons to formally validate and celebrate female entrepreneurs’ efforts.

Finally, a lack of networking opportunities remains a persistent barrier to female founders. By providing networks – through LEPs, for instance – and encouraging more female employees and founders to get into schools and universities, we can shine a spotlight on role models and inspire the next generation.

If women set up businesses at the same rate as men, we’d have 1.1m more in this country. If they can scale them at the same rate too, we could add nearly £250bn to the UK economy.

Share of Funding to Women-Led Firms Doubles in Less Than a Decade

A report from the Female Founders Forum – with a foreword from Rt Hon Liz Truss MP – reveals that while the percentage of deals to female-led teams slightly dipped in 2018, female-led businesses represent a growing share of investment activity and receive similar rates of follow-on funding.

• Female-founded startups are receiving a growing share of investment. In 2011, 11% of startups that raised equity investment were female founded. By 2018, this figure had nearly doubled to 21%. 

• Of the 6,147 investment deals made in 2018, 17.9% went to companies with at least one female founder, down from 18.2% in 2017.

• Nonetheless the total amount invested in businesses with at least one female founder in 2018, as a percentage, was 11.4%, up from 9.9% in 2017.

• Using data from Beauhurst, we find that female-founded businesses also have similar rates of follow-on funding. Once they received an initial investment , female-founded startups were just as likely to raise additional rounds of funding  compared to non-female-founded firms (52% vs 51% for startups without a female founder).

• Of the 19 high-growth companies that have floated on the stock market since 2011, three (or 15 %) were female founded. Of the 665 high-growth companies that have been acquired since 2011, 53 (8%) have at least one female founder.

• Though we find women-led businesses securing investment in all sectors, they are over-represented in some sectors (industrials), and under-represented in others (tech and IP-based businesses), relative to all equity-funded startups.

• In a foreword for the report, Rt Hon Liz Truss MP, Minister for Women and Equalities, says: “We have made great strides. I hope and expect that a decade from now, we will look at how far female entrepreneurship has come.”

• In March HM Treasury found that the gender gap accounts for approximately 1.1m missing businesses, which equates to a £250bn opportunity for the UK economy.

• Female VC partners are three times more likely to invest in companies with a female CEO, but Diversity VC has revealed that 83% of VC firms have no women on their investment committees.

Here and Now: Making the UK the Best Place in the World for Female Founders, a new report from the Female Founders Forum (a joint Barclays/The Entrepreneurs Network project), finds that while in 2011 just 11% of funding went to firms with at least one female founder, by 2018 this figure had grown to 21%. Further, female-founded businesses have similar rates of follow-on funding – reversing any perceptions that women are a less bankable investment.

Once funded, the percentage of women-founded startups that raised additional rounds of capital was similar to non-women-founded firms (52% vs 51% for startups without a female founder). Among startups five or more years on from their first raise, female founded startups were more likely to have secured a second funding round (66.5% vs 62.8%) and marginally more likely to have secured a third funding round (42.8% vs 41.8%).

This makes sense: at the early stages where venture capital firms make their initial investments, there is limited rigorous, objective information available. It means the founding team comes under great scrutiny, and there is a risk that gender bias can play a decisive role in who receives investment. As investors get more information, however, unconscious bias is less decisive.

The five highest raises with a female founder in 2018 were Orchard Therapeutics (£117.5m), MADE (£40m), Hyperoptic (£38.6m), Darktrace (£38m) and COMPASS Pathways (£35m). 

The Gender Gap

The report draws on other evidence that finds one in five businesses is created by a woman, that funding rates for all-female teams are still abysmal (these firms receive just a penny in every pound of VC investment) and that male-led businesses are five times more likely to achieve £1m+ turnover. Women tend to be less concerned with expanding their businesses and are over-represented in service industries.

Though we find women-led businesses securing investment in all sectors, they are over-represented in some sectors, and under-represented in others, relative to all equity-funded startups. They are less likely to be tech or IP-based businesses (27.9% vs 32.9% for all equity-funded startups) but more likely to be involved in the category of industrials (21% vs 15% for all equity-funded startups). Within the category of industrials, female-founded businesses are twice as likely to be involved in clothing (3.1% vs 1.5% for all equity-funded startups) and significantly more likely to be involved in food and drink based enterprises (10.5% vs 5.7% for all equity-funded startups).

In a Foreword to the Report, Rt Hon Liz Truss MP writes:

“It’s completely wrong that 50% of the population are not being fully utilised, they’re not having their talents used, and they’re not contributing as they could do to our fantastic economic success story. It's important to speak out against inaccurate stereotypes and celebrate the great female-founded businesses like HyperOptic and Darktrace. I commend this report and the ongoing work of The Entrepreneurs Network and Barclays on the Female Founders Forum."

Annabel Denham, Head of the Female Founders Forum, says:

Though there is undeniably work to be done to level the playing field and tackle unconscious bias, by dwelling on the negatives we risk missing how far we have come. We can now reveal that funding rates are similar for male and female-led businesses, dispelling the myth that female founders are a less bankable investment. Ensuring women-led businesses start and scale is vital to our economy and society. We need more investment to pour into these firms, more female networks, and many more role models to inspire the next generation.”

Juliet Rogan, Head of High Growth and Entrepreneurs at Barclays, says:

“The opportunity is clear – if we create an environment where women start and scale businesses at the same rate as men, we could add nearly £250 billion to the UK economy. At Barclays we are committed to helping make this happen. We have the trust of 24 million customers and nearly one million businesses, and inclusive UK economic growth is essential for our success. We are a proud signatory of the Investing in Women code, and we are committed to providing all the support and resources needed for female entrepreneurs to thrive.”

Recommendations

Here and Now raises a number of issues for policymakers, schools, the media and others to consider.

• Government should open the doors of Number 10 and Parliament to female entrepreneurs and formally validate their efforts. 

• Government should gather more data on STEM drop-off rates, examine the role of socialisation in the STEM disparity, and ensure careers guidance informs and tackles gender stereotypes.

• Schools must instil the right skills, financial literacy and self-belief in young girls from school age so that they may become the entrepreneurs of the future.

• The media must continue its efforts to shine a spotlight on the barriers to female entrepreneurship, profile those women in male-dominated industries, and ensure others get the role models they need to start and scale up.

• Venture Capitalists could continue to work with organisations like Diversity VC and consider training programmes to tackle unconscious bias.

The report features three case studies: Tania Boler (Founder – Elvie), Alexandra Daly (Founder – AA Advisors), and Tugce Bulut (Founder – Streetbees). All are available for interview.

Tania Boler, Co-Founder, Elvie

Elvie – which is behind the kegel trainer and silent breast pump – was recently listed as one of the UK’s Top 100 fastest-growing businesses. “When raising money, bear in mind that you will need to work with these individuals for a long time. You need to be sure they are right for you – not just the other way around.”

Tugce Bulut, Co-Founder, Streetbees

Turkish-born entrepreneur Tugce Bulut founded AI market research company Streetbees in 2015. It was recently listed as one of the UK’s Top 100 fastest-growing firms. “We must teach children entrepreneurial skills from the start. I cannot stress enough how important it is to learn how to take risks and cope with failure.”

Alexandra Daly, Founder, AA Advisors

AA Advisors was founded in 2007 when Daly decided to apply her skills and knowledge, acquired during a career working for some of the largest global investment banks, to her own “PnL”. 12 years later later Daly is mentor to five women and sits on the board of the APPG for Women and Enterprise. “Never before has there been a better time to be a female founder: we need to be positive about the here and now.”

Female Founders Forum: Future Leaders

A week is a long time in politics and this one will surely pass more slowly than most. My hope is that the Female Founders Forum quarterly newsletter can offer a welcome respite and encouragement on the state of (female) entrepreneurship here in Britain.

We are just a few weeks from the launch of our new Female Founders Forum report. To jog the memory on how we are trying to shape policy to ensure more women-led businesses can start and scale, look no further than our two previous reports. Untapped Unicorns was one of the first studies to shine a spotlight on the gender funding gap – which is now getting the attention it deserves – and was quoted in the HM Treasury review into female entrepreneurship earlier this year. Mentoring Matters addressed access to role models and mentors – both deemed vital to ensuring more women start and scale businesses. This year we are turning attention towards leadership – building a culture, managing crises, and when scaling a business.

Our most exciting news from the last few months is the addition of fantastic new members to the FFF.

– Mums in Technology Founder June Angelides is one of the most influential women in tech. She is chair of The Future Skills Programme, a founding Ambassador of the FiftyFiftyPledge, and a VC at Samos Investments.
– Tania Boler, co-founder of Elvie, is restoring pelvic floors and giving women the confidence to pump in public. Any concerns femtech founders may have that VCs won’t invest in female-focused firms can look no further for inspiration.
– Erika Brodnock is founder of Karisma Kidz, multi-award winning entrepreneur, Sky News parenting expert and NED at Fundamentally Children.
– Alex Daly is on the coalface, leading the industry taskforce charged with implementing the Rose Review, mentoring five other women, sitting on the APPG for Women and Enterprise, all while running AA Advisors.
– Julia Elliott Brown is taking a practical approach to ensuring women-led businesses get the finance they need to scale with her second business, Enter The Arena.
– Annabel Karmel is helping mothers across the nation nourish their children with her extensive range of cookbooks, foods and recipes. 
– Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts CBE surely needs no introduction.

Since our last email, we have also held roundtables across the country, written articles for national media, and banged the drum for female entrepreneurship at external events. Here’s what you may have missed.

May. The ONS released figures showing that the UK has more women in work than ever before. Now 71% of women are in work, compared to 65% in 2010 (though part of the leap can be accounted for by changes in the women’s pension age). 

June. Japan’s Labour minister was widely ridiculed for declaring that it is “necessary and reasonable” that women wear heels in the workplace. In Switzerland, thousands of women protested against the slow pace of correcting inequalities between the sexes. More positively, here in the UK it was found that more women than ever are at the top of UK companies. Statistics released by the government commissioned Hampton-Alexander review found that as of 1st June, 32.1% of FTSE100 board positions were held by women. 

July. We held three roundtables centred around gender-specific issues in entrepreneurship. Our Female Founders Forum roundtable in Edinburgh addressed leadership challenges. A roundtable with Virginie Charles-Dear addressed the funding gap. (Charles-Dear is founder of toucanBox, one of the UK’s top 100 fastest-growing businesses.) And, we held an event in Parliament with the Rail Delivery Group to discuss rail fare reform, that would reduce exorbitant rail fares for female founders working flexibly. Baroness Kramer, member of the APPG for Entrepreneurship, was keynote speaker, and I wrote about the gender commuting gap for the Telegraph. If you would like to get involved in the campaign for fair fares, do get in touch.

The month also saw a seismic shift in interest in women’s football. A record billion viewers tuned in, suggesting the gender imbalance can still be redressed. With the sponsorship received and increasing fan numbers, the Barclays FA Women’s Super League is set for a big year. 

August. The Entrepreneurs Network released Future Founders: Understanding the Next Generation Entrepreneurs, which found that while 57% of young people cannot name an entrepreneur who inspires them, 85% of those who can list a man. The most commonly-named female founder was Kylie Jenner. While her success in a competitive industry is commendable, I wrote for the Telegraph that we need more diverse role models to inspire the next generation. We found that while Generation Z men and women have thought about starting businesses at similar rates, men are almost twice as likely to have started one (11% to 6%). 

And the release of GCSE results was cause for celebration. Not only did over 800 students receive 9s across the board, but the data show that boys and girls are shunning subjects traditionally associated with their gender. There was a 14% increase in the number of girls studying computing, and they are performing better in STEM subjects than historically. The number of female students taking A-level exams in sciences overtook males for the first time ever this year.

Subscribe to the Female Founders e-bulletin here.

Too Many Men?

Our recent female founders report is still receiving press coverage. Female founders forum member Debbie Wosskow writes in The Guardian about her plan to change the investment imbalance. And The National has also written about our report.

The FFF Interview: Nancy Cruickshank, founder, MyShowcase.com

In my latest Huffington Post column, I have the pleasure of interviewing Nancy Cruickshank, the effervescent serial entrepreneur whose latest venture, MyShowcase.com, is transforming the beauty industry.

Her personalised online beauty shopping service helps female entrepreneurs expand their beauty businesses; offers customers access to thousands of stylists and products; and gives over 40 different beauty brands access to a new market.

When she’s not working on her third venture, she finds time to champion women entrepreneurs (not least through her involvement in our Female Founders Forum), extoll the virtues of the sharing economy, and spend time with her family of four.

Read my interview in full here.

The FFF Interview: Emma Sinclair, founder, EnterpriseJungle

This week, I caught up with Emma Sinclair – serial entrepreneur, Unicef Business Ambassador and the youngest person to IPO on the London Stock Exchange.

Emma left a successful career at Rothschild to found Mission Capital, which she floated aged 29. Since, she has built two more businesses – Target Parking and EnterpriseJungle.

She has never let her age act as a barrier to her success, and she dismisses claims order ativan online canada that female entrepreneurs aren’t taken as seriously as their male counterparts. Nonetheless, she spends much of her free time championing entrepreneurship across the globe and giving back to the entrepreneurial community.

“I’m happy to do it: I love each and every interesting person, venture and event I cross paths with. I never tire of hearing their stories and experiences.”

Read my interview with Emma in full here.

The FFF interview: Tamara Lohan MBE, founder, Mr and Mrs Smith

In the latest in a series of FFF interviews for the Huffington Post, I catch up with Tamara Lohan – one half of the duo behind Mr and Mrs Smith hotels.

Unlike many entrepreneurs, who sold lemonade at kindergarten and grew up wanting to be the next Bill Gates, Lohan took a more opportunistic approach to her career. It saw her launch an energy drink in Brazil, consult Ericsson and Swissair on their branding strategies and, at one point, run a dating agency.

In 2002, she co-founded Mr and Mrs Smith with her husband James. Since then, the business has grown into an award-winning booking service and worldwide travel club.

Read the interview in full here.

The FFF interview: Laura Tenison MBE, founder, JoJo Maman Bébé

For the first in a series of interviews with the inspirational members of our Female Founders Forum, I caught up with JoJo Maman Bébé founder Laura Tenison MBE.

Tenison may have the drive and tenacity typical of many entrepreneurs, but her business still remains in the unemployment-ridden dock town in South Wales where she grew up. She is on a mission to help regenerate local high streets, and for her, success goes hand-in-hand with social good. And she has little sympathy for those founders who think entrepreneurship should be easy.

“‘I worked three jobs when I started JoJo,’ she says. ‘I slept on the floor of my flat and rented out my bedroom. Entrepreneurship is hard. But I feel those entrepreneurs who are really challenged in the early years are those who achieve longevity. They’re the ones who know how to solve problems.'”

Read the article in full here.

Why aren’t more female entrepreneurs scaling up?

We know that more and more women are choosing careers in entrepreneurship. So why aren’t there more high-growth, female-owned companies, asks our programmes director Annabel Denham in today’s Huffington Post.

While the number of female entrepreneurs increased by 9.6 per cent in the two years to 2013, compared with a 3.3 per cent rise for men (according to the Office for National Statistics), data also show that women-led businesses are not scaling up at a rate even close to male-led companies.

Research has also shown that the main challenges confronting growth in women-owned businesses relate to a combination of access to finance, fear of failure and lower perception of opportunity. But it is that fact that women are much less likely to use private equity or venture capital, and are more likely to be discouraged from borrowing, that is particularly worrisome.

Speaking to Blackbullion founder and member of The Entrepreneurs Network Vivi Friedgut, the author concludes that:

“The government could help. It is positive that coding has already been added to the curriculum for every five year old – but we need more girls to be inspired and encouraged to study and build careers in the science, tech, engineering and maths (STEM) sectors. We need more campaigns like WISE, which aims to get 1 million more women into the UK STEM workforce. And we need the government to work more closely with schools and universities to promote these subjects.

Female entrepreneurs are a huge untapped resource. “There’s a gap in the market that will be filled by women,” says Friedgut. And angels and VCs will capitalise on that. It’s just a matter of time.”

The Huffington Post column can be read in full here.

The TEN Interview: Philip Salter talks visas with Migreat’s Josephine Goube

For his most recent Forbes Column, our director caught up with Josephine Goube, director of partnerships at Migreat.com and author of Open Borders to Entrepreneurs & Innovators.

First, she explains the origins of the entrepreneur visa. She then discusses how the progressive rigidity of immigration systems across the globe has made it so difficult for entrepreneurs to qualify for and receive a visa to start a new venture – particularly in Europe. And finally, where to buy ativan online in canada Goube details which countries have the best policies in place for foreign entrepreneurs – and why.

Read the fascinating interview in full here.