Women entrepreneurs outperform men – given the opportunity

Crowdfunding campaigns led by women are significantly more successful than those led by men across most industries – and across the world.

Women Unbound is a new report, due to be published in early 2017, jointly by PwC and The Crowdfunding Centre.

The report has analysed hundreds of thousands of crowdfunding campaigns and shows an inherent and historic bias is still endemic in traditional funding mechanisms for businesses, where women entrepreneurs typically receive less than 10% and men more than 90%.

This massive new data-set, collected by the centre over three years, has proven that this bias against women “evaporates” in the crowdfunding space.

The report investigates the trends and offers recommendations as to how traditional funding models can be adapted, using the lessons this data provides from the results of crowdfunding campaigns, to re-balance this.

The lessons from the data and the analysis for the report will be discussed at the Deep Impact conference in London on November 24 2016 with a panel including The Crowdfunding Centre and PwC as well as the Association of Business Mentors.

Barry E James, founder/CEO The Crowdfunding Centre, said:

“The data is remarkably consistent, over both time and different industries and geographies. It clearly shows that while around twice as many men as women launch crowdfunds the women’s campaigns do at least as well – and mostly better.

“The data is telling us that, as with STEM subjects, there is a historic and unconscious bias inherent in the perceptions upon which decisions are based in the traditional economy – evident because when the ‘grey suit factor” is removed, and the crowd decide on the merits of the campaign, it effectively evaporates.

“This is a very important finding as it offers new insight and tools with which to help tackle the root of this problem and hope of changing perceptions – correcting a historic injustice, as well as bringing potentially huge benefits to both women and society as a whole.”

Welcoming the “solid base of data” which was previously untapped, Jon Terry, PwC partner, said:

“In many business decisions, be that in hiring, promotions, pay and opportunities, unconscious bias is at the root of inequality.

“While in entrepreneurial funding and finance there has traditionally been a very wide gender disparity, we’ve all lacked a solid base of data to be able to make comparisons.

“Which is why this massive data-set is proving so valuable, allowing us to have a basis for comparisons across sectors and geographies as well as gender, to see if unconscious bias plays a part in funding decisions, which has not previously been possible.”