Why Women? by Talanton
“Women will continue to find space and representation in a sector that not only speaks to them, but is helping them create the change they wish to bring to the world.”
Read this article from Talanton to discover statistics that show the rise of women entrepreneurs and women investors.
“Women control nearly 30% or $39.6 trillion of the world’s wealth and 51% and $14 trillion of personal wealth in the United States. By 2020, that amount is expected to rise to $22 trillion in the US alone and over the next two generations, women are expected to inherit 70% of transferable wealth.”[1]
Take a moment to let those numbers sink in.
Women, particularly millennial women, are also statistically more likely to become impact investors.[2] Popular reasoning for this is that women have different motivations when it comes to investing, and oftentimes are interested in investing through a gender lens. This makes sense given the predominantly male dominated venture capital, private equity, tech and start-up sectors.
According to Harvard Business Review enterprises owned by women in the formal sector represent almost 37% of businesses worldwide. This number continues to gain attention from policy makers, businesses and investors – and it should. It has been shown that for every dollar a woman in emerging markets makes, 90 cents get reinvested into her family and community in the way of education, nutrition, health etc. – a stark contrast to the 30-40 cents reinvested by men. [3]
Particularly of interest to Talanton, is an entrepreneur’s ability to create jobs in an employment hungry market. The World Bank has published that 600 million jobs are going to be needed in the developing world by 2030 to meet the needs of fast-growing urban populations, primarily in Africa and Asia. It is expected that 80% of those jobs will be created by small and medium enterprises. In the HBR report cited above, the women entrepreneurs surveyed employ one or more people, with the expectation that they will hire up to six more individuals over the next five years. In the US alone, more than half of the jobs created in the SME sector this year will have been created by women-owned enterprises.
Necessity is said to be the mother of invention, and throughout Europe and the US women entrepreneurs are showing higher levels of innovation than their male counterparts, offering new products and services and innovating in stagnant industries. A great example of this is the female hygiene product sector. With the rise of sustainability and a revitalized feminist movement, the sector has been flipped on its head by brands like Thinx[4] and Divacup[5] – to name two fast-becoming household brands among a much broader trend. Interestingly enough, ‘copycat’ brands have popped up within the last year in places like Brazil[6] and South Africa[7] (and with women at the helm like their American counterparts). The process of taking an innovation with a growing track record in places like Europe and the US, and adapting it to different, developing world contexts is happening faster than ever before. Both out of need and opportunity.
Whether you are a fund thinking about your fundraising strategy or evaluating your pipeline of investees – you can bet on one thing: women want to be involved from both a capital and an enterprise perspective. Women will continue to find space and representation in a sector that not only speaks to them, but is helping them create the change they wish to bring to the world.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/advisor-network/articles/women-can-change-future-impact-investing/
[2]https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/16229/Impact%20Investing%20Report%20FINAL.pdf
[3] https://hbr.org/2013/09/global-rise-of-female-entrepreneurs