Venture Capital Is A Great Place For Women If They'd Give It A Chance

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Grace Nasri

Written by Grace Nasri, managing editor at comparison engine FindTheBest. She works with the NYC chapter of Women 2.0,?a women?s tech and entrepreneurship group.

The facts:?Women make up just 6% of chief executives at the leading 100 tech companies. Women are launching companies at a rate 1.5 times higher than the national average, but they receive less than 10 percent of venture funding. Women make up only 9% of board members of Silicon Valley companies. At the leading 25 VC firms, only 8% of the investment professionals are women.

The opinions:?The rationalizations as to why this is the case range from placing the onus on women for not majoring in quantitative fields and lacking the necessary skills needed to lead or invest in successful companies, to blaming what some see as a male-dominated culture that promotes traditionally masculine-qualities at the expense of women. The reality likely falls somewhere in-between.

Despite the relative lack of women in the tech and venture capital world, there are many successful female partners thriving in this space today?many of whom say that despite the low numbers, the VC industry is a great place for women.

Deborah Farrington (StarVest Partners), Jenny Lee (GGV Capital) and Annie Lamont (Oak Investment Partners) have made Forbes? Midas List of the leading venture capitalists over the years. They shared their personal stories about how they got their start, what inspires them about the space and what advice they would give fellow women aspiring to enter venture investing.

The venture world embraces many backgrounds

A unique thing about the venture capital industry is that it welcomes a range of backgrounds. Of the women interviewed in this article, one has a background in business, one is an engineer and one is a political scientist.

?Women need to realize that there are many ways to get involved in venture capital,? Farrington, who received her BS in Economics at Smith College and went on to get her MBA at Harvard Business School, advised. ?My background in finance gave me the expertise to analyze business models. For e-commerce investing, women who have backgrounds in retail, fashion and media are well prepared because they understand the customers.?

The venture capital space is great for women

Venture capitalists tend to agree that since the industry is so performance-based and results-driven, it favors people solely on objective and quantifiable metrics?leaving little room for discrimination or favoritism.

Lee, who received her BS in Electrical Engineering at Cornell and her MBA from the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, said that being a woman never hindered her; in fact, she says the advantage of working in such a metrics-driven sector means performance is judged on a very objective scale. ?I do not feel hindered [as a female VC]. The big advantage of being in the venture capital industry is that performance can be clearly measured by the work you have done, CEOs you have supported?and the returns you have delivered. Staying focused, finding good companies to invest in and?returning capital to our investors continue to be the number one objective and best measurement for?performance?in our industry,? Lee explained, adding that there are many great things women can bring to the table in the venture world.

?Women have a sixth sense that?can sometimes be useful when combined with analytical skills to assess startup team dynamics and personalities.? Women may also work better on male-dominated boards to help balance views and perspectives,? Lee said.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/07/26/venture-capital-is-a-great-place-for-women-if-theyd-give-it-a-chance/

Source: http://www.heybellablog.com/venture-capital-is-a-great-place-for-women-if-theyd-give-it-a-chance

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