Women-led venture funds seek to reshape Silicon Valley
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A wave of women-led venture capital (VC) funds are working to ensure that more women receive VC funding and are part of the groups doling it out.
Why it matters: Women have long faced barriers to capital due to hiring practices that historically exclude women, limited access to networks and gender biases, critics say.
State of play: But the last decade has seen a spurt in women-led VC funds, according to All Raise, a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to increasing women and nonbinary representation in the VC ecosystem.
- Over 280 women-led funds in the U.S. have raised more than $12.6 billion since the beginning of 2022, All Raise CEO Paige Hendrix Buckner told Axios via email.
- That's a fraction of the $76.8 billion raised by U.S. VC firms in 2024 alone, but it's progress nonetheless, Hendrix Buckner says.
- "Forget waiting for a seat. We're building our own table," Lata Setty, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who helped launch the How Women Invest Fund in 2020, told Axios.
Zoom in: For How Women Invest, the goal is twofold — invest in women-founded companies and build a community of women investors to shape the VC world into a more equitable landscape, according to Setty.
- Their work has resulted in four acquisitions, 24 investments and 140 new limited partners (investors who provide capital).
- "A lot of different female funds are doing things of that nature to elevate, educate and really evangelize that we need to invest in female-founded startups," she added.
Yes, but: Women still hold less than 20% of decision-making roles at venture firms and remain underrepresented in managing partner or general partner positions, per All Raise's research.
- Meanwhile, U.S. companies founded or co-founded by women have received a smaller share of total deals compared to previous years, Pitchbook data shows.
Behind the scenes: One of the key factors for disparities in VC funding is that "women founders do not get that face time with venture capitalists," Setty said. "I say they're male, pale and stale, because they end up investing just by human nature in people that look like them, people they went to school with."
- Another barrier is lack of knowledge about the process, which can be a "roller coaster ride," said Vicky Pasche, founder of the gender-neutral clothing line Dapper Boi.
- Women experience everything from being told their idea is too niche to sexual harassment, Hendrix Buckner noted.
- "There is a skill you develop as a byproduct of trying to fundraise, and it's the ability to walk into a room and know capital is out of reach because you're a woman," she added.
The intrigue: Setty and Pasche are both involved in "Show Her the Money," a 2023 documentary that provides an inside look at how venture capital works by following four women founders.
- The film's success led to screenings around the nation, including one in Sacramento with First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom in August.
- Catherine Gray, executive producer of the documentary and a general partner of the Silicon Valley Women Founders Fund, told Axios that it's become an opportunity to educate women on how they too can make an impact.
- "That's what I love about all these new women-founded funds," she added. "We have a momentum going, and we need to talk about that."
What's next: "Show Her the Money" returns to the Bay Area on Dec. 11 with a screening in Palo Alto.
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