Study: Female VCs shockingly rare at American firms

[yuiyoshida]

Margit Wennmachers, a venture capitalist at Andreessen Horowitz, in her San Francisco, Calif., home in 2013.

A new study confirms what critics already knew: female venture capitalists are exceedingly rare.

So rare, the study found, that less than a third of venture capital firms in the United States employ a single woman to conduct business or participate in investment decisions, underscoring a long-standing problem with the VC industry’s diversity.

Venture capital firms and angel investors are largely responsible for funding Silicon Valley startups, which have also been critiqued for their lack of female and minority representation. Because it’s been proven time and again that investors tend to fund entrepreneurs who look like them — this news is unlikely to shock female, black and Latino entrepreneurs who have tried to start their own companies.

In the first study of its kind, Page Mill Publishing, which publishes legal and financial research, identified 403 female venture capitalists in the country, spread throughout 257 firms. But all told, there are more than 800 such firms in existence.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Study-Female-VCs-shockingly-rare-at-American-6455659.php