Diversity and inclusion startups

This International Women’s Day, we’ve taken a look at how women founders are faring so far in 2023 when it comes to raising startup investment, along with Diversity and Inclusion startups improving their odds. Although we are just 10 weeks into the year, we are seeing a similar pattern emerge from recent years. All-women founding teams have secured just 0.7% of European venture capital so far in 2023, with mixed-gender founding teams raising a further 11% of capital.

The lack of investment into female-founded startups is a missed economic opportunity. Research by First Round Capital and Boston Consulting Group has previously found that founder teams with women are more likely to exit and have a higher internal rate of return (IRR) — 112% versus 48%. Women founders hire 2.5x more women into their teams, in an industry that struggles with diverse hiring.

The key to moving the needle on funding decisions is increasing the diversity among decision makers. For this, several startups tackling the lack of diversity and inclusion emerged in the last years.  With investment in these startups taking off in recent years, reaching €325M in 2021, we’ve identified 70+ startups working to improve Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace, together with SwiftScale.

Access the full landscape by clicking here.

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