Why Female Founders find it harder to get Investors

The gender pay gap has come under intense scrutiny in recent years. Movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp have brought sexism issues to mainstream attention. This is true across a spectrum of industries. But there is a nuance when it comes to the startup investment space. Female founders are still underfunded compared to their male counterparts.

As an industry, it’s time to close this gap. To do so, will require a concerted effort from all parties – founders, funds, networks and investors – to overcome biases and to support merit wherever it is found.

Elite Business Magazine recently did a feature on this to discuss why female founders find it harder to raise funding than males.

The feature includes an interview with our very own, Olivia Sibony. Olivia recently sold her startup to EatWith before joining our team. In the interview, she describes the difficulties she faced when fundraising including discrimination because she was “…of childbearing age”.

She now runs our impact crowdfunding arm, SeedTribe. Her mission encapsulates two main aims. She wants to help anyone fundraise evaluated purely on merit. And she wants to encourage more people to invest. She is confident that SeedTribe will be a great platform to achieve this. (A fact she discussed in an earlier interview for The Guardian).

You can read the full feature and Olivia’s thoughts on the Elite Business Magazine website.

SeedTribe & Angel Investment Network make waves in the Press

The team at Angel Investment Network and SeedTribe have received a lot of positive press coverage recently including the Financial Times, the Guardian and BBC Radio 4.

It’s always rewarding to get public attention for your hard work. But more importantly, it’s great that our message is reaching a wider audience. Especially those people we can potentially help to find funding or great investment opportunities!

The most recent publications build a nice picture of what we are trying to accomplish over the coming months.

The focus falls, in particular, on our mission to drive positive change in the world. We are trying to increase the accessibility of the early-stage investment space, opening it up to a more diverse spectrum of investors (women and younger investors in particular). And we are helping ‘impact’ entrepreneurs get the right sort of investment for their projects.

Raconteur: Angel Investment Network & SeedTribe advocate a change in attitude towards Plastic Use

oliver jones olivia sibony plastic raconteur press
David Attenborough’s Blue Planet and the more recent BBC film “Drowning in Plastic” have brought the plastic epidemic to a global audience.

Universal horror has propelled action and a number of entrepreneurs have come forward with innovative solutions to the problem. One of these, Ahmed Detta, is currently fundraising for his recycling solution on SeedTribe.

In the midst of this backlash against plastic, we felt it important to make the point that plastic is an awesome resource with so many applications –

the real problem is not plastic, but our attitude towards it.

Raconteur picked up and published our argument – you can read it in full here

Financial Times: Angel Investment Network & SeedTribe support Impact Ventures

This September, the FT produced a special report on the ‘Impact Investing’ movement.

Regarding SeedTribe as one of the companies at the forefront of enabling the growth of this promising space, they included an interview with SeedTribe’s Head of Crowdfunding, Olivia Sibony.

olivia sibony seedtribe financial times press
Liv gives her thoughts on the important role companies like SeedTribe have to play in empowering impact entrepreneurs to enact positive and sustainable change in the world.

Read Liv’s interview in the special report here

The Guardian: Angel Investment Network & SeedTribe support Women Investors

Liv gave another interview with the Guardian, this one focused on the importance of encouraging more women investors and how the rise of the impact space could play a key part in bringing about this change.

olivia sibony seedtribe guardian press
Read ‘The Rise of the Female Investor’ interview here

Angel News: Angel Investment Network & SeedTribe support Millennial Investors

I wrote a comment piece for Angel News which ties in with Liv’s argument for women investors and the impact sector.

My thoughts centred on how younger generations of investors are motivated by conscience as well as the desire for wealth generation. I argue that companies like SeedTribe should do everything we can to harness this for the good of impact projects and the future of the planet.

Check out my two cents here

(Or if you don’t want to register on Angel News, I posted the article in a previous blog post.)

The Value of Press Coverage

This press coverage is all very flattering. But what has been most encouraging is its reception throughout the entrepreneurial and investment communities. Inbound LinkedIn requests are resulting in a number of exciting partnerships as people buy into what we are trying to do.

If you’re interested in this space as a potential partner, entrepreneur or investor, please do get in touch:

liv@seedtribe.com or oliver@angelinvestmentnetwork.co.uk

Incentivising Millennial Investors is Key for Impact Investment

Impact investing is a hot topic at the moment. And rightly so! We find this so encouraging because it is timely validation for the work we’ve been doing at our impact crowdfunding platform, SeedTribe. But there is more work to do before this industry can deliver the positive outcomes it promises. Part of this work involves incentivising the millennial generation of investors by giving them access to the best impact investments. Last month I wrote a piece on this ‘democratisation’ of impact investments for Angel News.

I wanted to share the message on here too:

Why Millennial Investors are Key for the Impact Space

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”

This oft-quoted and amusing aphorism attributed to the Dalai Lama captures the spirit of bloody-mindedness (literally) that can drive anyone, irrespective of category, to their desired destination.

But in some industries, one can’t help but feel that size really does matter.

Early-stage investments are top of the list. For a long time, this space was a stomping ground for suits and wallets; a predominantly male sphere where prestige was gained by backing risky and exciting ventures.
investor stereotype millennial
This (slightly) unjustified stereotyping is not to undermine the important role those traditional types of investor have played in driving innovation.

But it’s important that this model evolve to become more inclusive and conscience-driven.

The advent of crowdfunding kicked off this shift: now individuals could invest in projects based on what they could afford and how much they valued the enterprise. Equity crowdfunding then allowed people to get a stake, as if they were a professional investor, in their chosen companies.

This democratisation helped spur an interest in innovation and startups among those previously unable to contribute. Now anyone could make a difference no matter how small.

However, it has become increasingly apparent that the quality of investments available on mainstream crowdfunding is still far below the level of deal flow available to professional investors.

You are never going to find the next AirBnB on a crowdfunding site. The traditional investors still hold a monopoly at the forefront of innovation.

So what? They will keep investing and funding visionary businesses and the merry parade will go on. We all benefit, right?

But the future they are creating is not one they will have to live with, at least not for very long. And that alters the motivation framework for them.

I’m not trying to denounce these investors or ascribe to them intentions which may or may not be there. But the truth is, the motivations for investing in a company inevitably differ between a 25-year old millennial and a 60-year old.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that, in most cases, the 60-year old will be more interested in wealth creation for themselves and their immediate family, while the younger person will have more concern for the future of the world they hope to inhabit for another 60 years or so.

The Rise of Capital with Conscience

The dramatic uplift in public concern over issues surrounding sustainability and the environment supports this. And it is the millennial generation who are driving this. They have come to realise that the effects of inaction will have irreparable consequences for their futures.
millennial impact investors
Sharing articles, protesting and walking to work are some ways individuals are trying to make a difference. We do these things but still feel too small to make a real difference.

Investing in impact businesses is a potential avenue for a new breed of investors to make a quantifiable difference. Impact or ‘profit-with-purpose’ businesses aim to change the world for the better while turning a profit and generating returns for investors. Included in this open attitude to positive change is a willingness to explore more inclusive methods of raising investment.

Young people, who are more environmentally engaged than ever before and willing to invest in ‘good’, neither have the resources nor the network to invest using traditional methods in the companies their conscience demands of them for a better future.

Luke Gavin, a 26-year old Greentech consultant, knows this difficulty: “One of the frustrating things about the low carbon energy sector is its inaccessibility to the average person – so much of the money comes from large institutional investors.”

A report by Barclays also shows the high appetite among younger generations with millennials four times more likely than older generations to put their money in impact funds.

How are we helping millennial investors?

At SeedTribe, we want to encourage this new generation of conscientious investors. We evaluate and vet the most exciting impact investment opportunities using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) alongside commercial frameworks and allow people to invest online from £100 in exchange for equity.
UN sustainable development goals millennial
Young people want to invest in the most promising impact businesses. It is a concern for the future motivated not simply by financial reward, but more importantly by the hope of a better world for themselves and future generations. We need to do everything we can to support this.

You can read the original article on Angel News here