In an effort to boost female entrepreneurship in the tech space, Microsoft’s M12, Mayfield, and Pivotal Ventures holds an annual Female Founders Competition to invest in top women-led tech startups. The competition brings together women tech entrepreneurs from the U.S, Europe, Israel, and India to develop enterprise tech solutions, vying to win a combined $6 million in venture funding.
Compared to male-only-led teams, female founded companies receive dramatically little in venture funding, a critical component of bringing a company’s product to ideation in the market. Last year, only 2.3% of the total capital invested in venture backed startups went to companies founded by women. Yet, studies show women founded companies deliver more than two times as much revenue per dollar invested than their male counterparts according to a study conducted by MassChallenge and Boston Consulting Group, despite this funding disadvantage.
Now, Microsoft hopes to curb this disadvantage by offering significant money once again at this year’s competition, focusing on companies with at least one female founder and who have raised no more than $5 million. The report also suggests that if female founders were funding equivalent to the male counterparts the global economy could experience up to a $5 trillion boost.
“Last year’s competition helped highlight that there are innovative female entrepreneurs developing enterprise tech solutions, and they just aren’t getting equal access to capital,” said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president, Business Development, Microsoft Corp. “The tech industry can’t afford to keep leaving women’s good ideas on the table. We need to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs, and together with Mayfield and Pivotal Ventures, we aim to do just that with our second Female Founders Competition.”
Submissions were being accepted as of October 17, 2019
