Number of the Day
Just 20 Companies on the NYSE and Nasdaq Were Founded and Led by Women
Could VCs be part of the problem?
20: That’s the number of women startup founders who have led their companies to an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange — since its founding 204 years ago — or the Nasdaq, according to an analysis by Business Insider.
If you include companies that are no longer publicly traded, or which were led but not founded by a woman, that number increases slightly. But only 4 of the 442 companies that went public in 2020 were both founded and led by women. This major imbalance is driven in large part by the lack of venture funding that goes to women founders. Pitchbook reported that in 2019, women-founded startups received only 2.7% of all venture funding in the U.S., and that share went down to 2.6% in 2020.
Women founders face an especially steep challenge at the late stage when startups are more likely to attempt to go public. Pitchbook found that the median valuations for women-founded late-stage startups lagged the broader market by about $8 million, and that gap widened to roughly $17 million during the pandemic, with the median valuation for women-founded late-stage startups falling slightly from 2019.
