An all-women founding staff has as little as a 1-in-5000 likelihood of being funded in Australia based on the newest evaluation of funding information from Blackbird.
The VC fund launched particulars on its efforts to shut the gender funding hole for the 2025 monetary yr (FY25), with head of influence, Kate Glazebrook, saying “the last 12 months saw one of our best years ever in terms of investments made into female (co)founded companies”.
Blackbird’s “headline goal” of 40% of its funding committee (IC) pitches that includes groups with at the very least one feminine (or non-binary) founder stays past attain for the third yr in a row, sitting as an alternative at round a 3rd of these fronting as much as ask for cash.
“Despite big efforts, our top of pipeline volume didn’t match the highs of FY24,” Glazebrook stated of the numbers.
“But, we saw improvement elsewhere in the pipeline, and in particular, capital investments.”
However the excellent news is Blackbird “made first bets on 9 new female (co)founded companies”, up 80% on the 5 in each FY23 and FY24 – a peak in 12 years of investing. That features core funding backing, largely in pre-Seed or Seed rounds; in addition to follow-on cheques for portfolio corporations.
That translated to 32% of the brand new investments out of our ‘core’ fund, or 35% of all new investments,” Glazebrook stated, including that it represents a 9% enhance in the share of new investments into all-female and blended groups over two years
“In financial terms, those teams took about a quarter (24%) of the total dollars we invested into new companies from our core fund, or a whopping 61% if you include all new investments,” she stated.
The toughest half for the VC is discovering the appropriate kind of ladies, Glazebrook stated.
“Our biggest challenge is top-of-pipeline: meeting more women founders pursuing businesses that match our mandate,” she stated.
“And so while we didn’t quite make our target at the investment committee pitch stage, we are continuing our efforts, particularly at the top of the funnel this coming year. ”
Blackbird has outperformed the market extra broadly relating to investing in ladies founders, however the sheer maths of enterprise funding exhibits how unattainable the duty could be.
Glazebrook stated Blackbird invests in 1-2% of the businesses that come into the VC’s pipeline. All-women groups characterize 2% of that funding. That’s on a par with the business numbers extra broadly.
That implies that within the pipeline, the possibility of an all-female staff being funded sits between 0.04% and 0.02% – between a 1-in-2500, and 1-in-5000 likelihood.
The VC had practically 1800 offers added to its pipeline in FY25. Round 39% got here from all-female or blended groups.
Of 146 all-female groups, 42% of these startups made it to the IC. That falls to 24% for blended groups from 560 within the pipeline, however rises to 42% once more for 1091 among the many all-male groups.
The Blackbird funding pipeline and outcomes. Supply: Blackbird
An equal likelihood
However Blackbird’s head of influence argues that making it to IC as a girl places you on a degree taking part in subject with the blokes.
“Our FY25 data has shown that female (co)founded companies are about as likely to succeed as their all-male counterparts. We’ve known for a while that female (co)founded teams that get to IC pitch tend to have a higher chance of getting a ‘yes’, but we’re now seeing that equalisation across the whole pipeline,” Glazebrook stated.
“If we are able to preserve this, the problem shifts much more clearly to sourcing: rising the quantity of ladies founders we meet in our funding mandate.
“We spent FY25 experimenting with ideas in that space. Interestingly, these efforts didn’t translate to a higher volume of leads, but the improved conversion tells us something about getting better matches.”
Glazebrook stated they “looked for ways to evolve the narrative away from just being a conversation about how little cash goes to women founders”.
However amid what seems like spectacular numbers, there’s one factor price noting in 60% of the money going to blended groups, in comparison with 39% of Blackbird’s investments going to blokes (and no, we’re undecided how, with 2% going to all-women groups, the VC managed to take a position 101%, however that’s all-in dedication for you) that 60% contains Airwallex, with Lucy Liu as cofounder.
Blackbird poured a whopping $60 million into Airwallex’s $232 million Collection F in Might this yr. That’s an enormous finger on the dimensions in direction of blended groups.
A clearer metric is the proportion of offers completed: 8% for all-women, 27% for blended groups, and 65% for all-lads.
You may slice an onion quite a lot of alternative ways. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless an onion.
You may learn Kate Glazebrook’s full evaluation on the gender funding hole right here.
Blackbird’s investments in women-led startups in comparison with the broader VC market. Supply: Blackbird
