In celebration of International Women’s Day today, Tom Britton, Co-Founder at Syndicate Room, shared his thoughts and some of the research they have published on Women Founders to amplify the great work that they do.
He says “ the Access EIS fund is proud that more than one third of the companies it backs have at least one female founder. When we select angel investor partners to co-invest with we aim for them to be more representative of society. For those that are not, we like to see that they have previously backed more diverse founders”.
He adds “There has been a slow and steady rise of angel networks focused on backing more diverse founders. Sarah Turner and the team at Angel Academe were early in this on their mission to get more women angel investing and more women led businesses funded. They’ve been a shining light in the industry for a while and have been joined along the way by the likes of Addie Pinkster and her team at Adelpha and Deepali and her team at Alma Angels.
“I do hope with our fund we can continue to amplify the work that they do as even more needs to be done.
“Operating a more inclusive culture helps funds like ours to recruit and retain talented team members. However, I think it’s just the start and more public data should be made available. For example, when details around salaries for presenters at the BBC became public, the public took notice and changes began (though not sufficient in my opinion). More firms should be required to push this data as it will force more change and nearly all studies show that more diverse teams perform better than those that are not.”
