Female Funders releases “Women in Venture,” report on women in VC, angel, and corporate investing in Canada and the United States

The report found that women account for 15% of partners at Canadian VC firms compared to 13% in the U.S.

Today, Female Funders, an initiative of co-creation and venture capital firm Highline Beta dedicated to activating more women as angel and venture capital investors, released its second annual “Women in Venture” report analyzing female representation in venture capital, angel, and corporate investing. The report found that 15.2 percent of all partners at Canadian venture firms are women; up more than a full percent since this time last year. Still, the number of VC dollars invested in Canada in 2018 by funds led by women decreased: 85 percent of all dollars invested were in funds with no women managing partners.

“In 2019, most of us can agree that there are not enough women making decisions about the future of industries and innovation,” says Lauren Robinson, Highline Beta General Partner and Female Funders Executive Director. “But there is still too much talk, and not enough action. The intent of this report is to give venture capital firms, angels, and LP investors the information we need to benchmark ourselves, and to make concrete change. We hope by bringing greater transparency to these systemic problems, we can provide the inspiration and insight that will catalyze a different future for venture capital.”

In addition to analyzing the makeup of investing teams across Canada—the report’s sole focus in 2018—this year’s Women in Venture Report pulled data from the United States and from corporate venture capital groups to understand how gender diversity in investing differs across North America’s innovation ecosystem.

Venture capital firms in the United States are slightly behind Canada in terms of the representation of female partners: only 13.2 percent compared to Canada’s 15.2 percent. Across both markets, the report found that as seniority increases within funds, female representation decreases—women account for 36 percent of venture analysts in the U.S. and Canada but only 13.5 percent of all partners and 8.9 percent of managing partners.

The numbers are slightly better among angel investors and corporate venture capital funds, according to the report, which found that women make up 16.7 percent of angel group members in Canada and 15.9% of partners and executives in corporate venture capital across both markets.

“Angel investors and venture capitalists can have a huge impact by helping to bring more women to the table,” says Tara McLean, a participant in Female Funders Angel Academy who recently made her first two angel investments after completing the program. “Mentorship from an experienced investor gave me the comfort I needed to make my first angel investments. I hope to play a role in closing the gender gap in investing, and help make the process of raising capital more accessible to women founders.

The “Women in Venture” report was created to establish a baseline look at women in venture capital today by analyzing public data on VC firm websites, and on other platforms including LinkedIn and Crunchbase. It looked at 4,500 team members of over 300 of the most active venture capital firms and corporate venture arms across Canada and the United States.

View the report in its entirety, here.

About Highline Beta

Highline Beta is a startup co-creation and venture capital firm that builds and funds new ventures alongside forward-thinking global enterprises. Highline BETA has partnered with leading companies, including Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), and American Family Insurance to accelerate their innovation goals and drive new venture development.

About Female Funders

Female Funders gives women the knowledge, access, and network needed to become successful early-stage investors. Female Funders provides an investor accelerator program that supports female leaders in the corporate and technology sectors to learn the fundamentals of venture capital and to make their first angel investments. To learn more about Female Funders visit femalefunders.com.