Only about 15% of investors are women, and female founders only capture 2% of all venture capital funding even though their businesses are more likely to be profitable. Furthermore, a 2023 McKinsey & Company study uncovered, “founders with greater gender and ethnic diversity achieve 30 percent higher returns for investors upon exit than their white male founder counterparts.”
You read that right: female founders get only 2% of venture capital. This glaring gender disparity in funding not only hampers the full realization of innovative potential but also results in missed opportunities for investors to secure substantial financial gains. Consequently, many female founders find themselves forced to bootstrap their ventures and navigate an arduous path to bring their visions to fruition.
The Journey of Tonya Turrell
One such female founder is Tonya Turrell, a veteran in the B2B lead generation space with over 25 years of experience. Turrell’s journey highlights the challenges and determination of women entrepreneurs. Her venture, The Launchpad, was born from her desire to self-seed her true vision. “When we started this agency in 2020, it wasn’t to start an agency; it was always to start a SaaS marketplace.”
That marketplace is a complex, one-of-a-kind matchmaking platform connecting IT buyers with the precise technology they need, simplifying the tech solutions search. She has been her investor, leveraging all her assets, including her retirement, and bootstrapped for three years to bring her platform to fruition.
Her dedication and potential for continued success are evident; The Launchpad ranked #123 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies. Her baby, technologymatch.com, has already created 20,000 connections between buyers and sellers for a $43 million pipeline and continues to grow since the Beta release in January 2023.
The Harsh Reality of Funding Disparities
Even with proven success, statistics for female founders are sobering. Consider for a moment Turrell’s success with other start-ups like LeadsOnDemand, which was #209 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies and where she achieved a multimillion-dollar exit. She is a wise investment, as is technologymatch.com, yet Turrell is still self-funding her dream.
Not being part of the “good ‘ole boys” club is certainly a barrier, but it goes further than that. There is also a lot of “newness” that traditional investors seem to be still overcoming. Turrell explains, “I’m a woman in tech. There are not enough of us. I’m a female CEO. There are not enough of us. I’m a female CEO in tech. There are really not enough of us.“
A female venture capitalist, Pocket Sun, featured in “Show Her The Money,” can relate. Her venture capital fund was “born out of my own pain point of not seeing enough women in the entrepreneurship world. I felt incredibly isolated and like an outsider,” she shared with CNBC. “Someone needs to do something about this.” And she has. She started her own VC fund, SoGal Ventures, which invests in female entrepreneurs and includes at least five unicorns.
Sadly, female founders often haven’t been given the education and knowledge that is commonplace for their counterparts. As a girl growing up, she was told it wasn’t polite to talk about money. “Men talk about it all the time,” shares Sharon Gless in “Show Her The Money.”
Many men grow up being taught about investments, finances, and entrepreneurship, while women are often excluded from these conversations. Turrell admits, “I have been a founder for 20 years, and I only just recently learned about fundraising. That’s why I have been my own seed — bootstrapping more than two million dollars to fund the development of the marketplace to date. This information is often inaccessible to women.” And that needs to change.
Belief in the Vision
“Closing this gap is not just the right thing to do — it is also key to driving innovation and unlocking economic gains. Underrepresented founders often create companies that have the potential to outperform their peers,” states the McKinsey report.
The challenges and triumphs of women entrepreneurs like Tonya Turrell emphasize the importance of addressing funding disparities and unlocking the full potential of female-founded businesses. As we move toward a future where women control an increasing share of investable assets, $32+ trillion, it is fundamental to ensure that the innovation and talent of female founders receive the recognition, opportunities and support they deserve.
