Counting on the snowball effect for gender balance

Investors Inga G. Grieger from BMW i Ventures, Bertrand Van Leersum from Borski Fund and Kasia Piasecki from European Women in VC all agreed: There are too few women investors and there are too few women founders. But they confirmed this will change – the more women there are in both fields, the more there will be. At the INNOVEIT Conference on women entrepreneurship they encouraged women to venture into both fields and shared advice. 

Building capabilities 

Kasia said, the annual report from European Women in VC* revealed that most investors prioritise impact when they invest. She advised startups to build capabilities in using the business model canvas and to leverage networks at different levels. Potential clients, peers and investors are all needed, especially in difficult times, which, she was very clear, will happen. Founders should also not forget to work on their mental health and their peace of mind to become as resilient as possible.  

“Be bold!” 

Bertrand sees cultural and gender bias as the main reason why women found less companies and receive less funding than men. According to him, people invest in people and businesses they can relate to. This means that there will also be a snowball effect when more women become investors – they are likely to invest into other women. His advice to women seeking funding is: “Be bold!” In his experience, men tend to show higher figures – if women are too modest and too pragmatic, they risk being undervalued, as investors will cut all presented goals in half anyway.  

The power of networks 

Inga brought the perspective of a corporate venture capital fund to the stage. Their investments focus on technologies linked to mobility such as green steel or flax based fibres replacing carbon fibres. She pointed to the business development side, which she views as female dominated. Bridging the gap between founders and investors, she said, required a lot of traditionally rather female attributed skills and opened the opportunity to stress diversity in teams. As Kasia and Bertrand did, she emphasised the importance of a network and of not being to shy to ask for help. 

* European Women in VC report 2024: "Beyond returns: Venture and Growth investing fueling sustainability and societal change".

Source: https://www.europeanwomenvc.org/resources/european-women-in-vc-report-2024 

This article was created from a panel headlined “Is the next generation of VC funds ready for deep tech, impact and diversity challenges?” at the EIT Community’s INNOVEIT Conference on women entrepreneurship in Helsinki one day before Slush 2024.   

The article is one of five revisiting the stage programme of this conference, in which speakers highlighted ways out of gender bias and towards a more equal future. Peggy Norbisrath created the graphic recordings.  

If you would like to dive deeper, please check the recording of the event

EIT - European Institute of Innovation and Technology | Celeste Reglá Díaz | Karin Helmstaedt