Women in VC and startups: How is the situation in Poland and worldwide?
For a while now, we've been observing the situation of Polish startups and VC funds, as well as global markets, with a focus on the participation of women. How does it look in Poland and around the world?
Talenti, an HRTech company specializing in, among other things, preparing personal career development paths for women, has prepared a report summarizing global and local data on the VC market, start-ups, and technological innovation ecosystems since 2015, both in Poland and worldwide. How are women faring in this still male-dominated market?
Women in VC – their numbers are small, but their funds earn more
According to the Polish PSIK, Abris Capital Partners, and Level20 report from 2021, women make up 9% of the management teams in VC and PE funds in Poland. 21% of the surveyed funds did not have a single woman on their team. In Europe and the USA, there are slightly more women, but the differences are not statistically significant – in Europe, it's 16%, and in the United States, it's 15% of the fund management teams (IDC and Pitchbook reports from 2022). "Female" VC funds also have access to smaller funds – 4-6% of the total amount of European investments (IDC).
VC funds with women on board almost twice as often invest in start-ups founded or co-founded by women – and this translates into fund earnings. Investments in companies with female founders bring 63% more profits to the funds (Funding in CEE, 2022 report).
- The representation of women at the investor and venture capital fund level results in a more diversified investment portfolio, while the representation of women at the corporate level is a fundamental condition for innovation, catalyzing economic growth, productivity, and social cohesion in Europe. Unfortunately, we observe inadequate representation of women in several areas of the labor market across Europe, particularly in the technological sector, the digital economy, Industry 4.0, and energy - noted Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education, and Youth.
Apart from the start-up and VC ecosystem, the report also contains information about the IT industry – it reveals, for example, that 43% of Polish female programmers have experience in other industries and switched to IT after training.
Check out the map of Polish start-ups founded by women
FR, in collaboration with Dealroom, has also created a continuously updated map of companies founded and/or led by women in the Polish start-up ecosystem – see what successes Polish female founders are achieving!
