Gender Differences in Entrepreneurship: Voices of Founders and Funders (Illuminate Ventures)

Summary

• The survey shows 70% of female founders and 60% of male founders cite bringing passionate product/solution ideas to market as their top motivation.p.3
• For female entrepreneurs, 58% identify access to appropriate sources of capital as their top barrier, compared to 37% of male founders.p.7
• A total of 49% of male founders rank the need for financial security as their primary barrier, whereas only 42% of women do.p.7
• Among investors, 67% of male VCs and 100% of female VCs believe male founders are more likely to have networks providing access to advisors and capital.p.6
• Nearly half of male investing partners meet with 10 or fewer companies per year that include a woman co-founder, compared to 18% of female VCs.p.10
• Over a 3-year period, 61% of male VCs invested in fewer than two companies with a female co-founder, compared to 30% of female VCs.p.10

Key insights

1. Female and male founders share striking similarities in primary motivations, with both groups overwhelmingly prioritizing bringing passionate product ideas to market over financial gain.p.3
2. Financial gain is selected as the top motivation by 15% of male founders but by only 2% of female founders.p.3
3. Resilience and perseverance is selected as a top-2 success attribute by two-thirds of both male and female entrepreneurs.p.4
4. VCs view resilience and deep domain expertise as top success attributes, while heavily underestimating the likelihood of women having equal networks to access capital.p.5
5. Balancing family and work commitments is viewed as a strong barrier by 31% of male founders compared to only 17% of female founders.p.7
6. Forty percent of female founders consider the limited number of same-gender investors to be a significant issue, a view shared by only 4% of male VCs.p.8
7. Female VCs meet with more than double the number of women-led startups annually compared to male VCs and invest in female co-founded companies at twice the rate.p.10
8. In 2017, female-founded companies received only 2% of total VC funding and 4.4% of deal volume, while women represented 8% of VC investing partners.p.11