EUVC x CO-INVESTIN | Roundtable on empowering women in innovation and venture

0:00Welcome everyone to today's roundtable where we are going to be talking all about how we can empower women in European venture and innovation. innovation. Today we have with us Dipali and Anghia from our good friends at Speed Invest, Yone from First Pick, Ivona. Maybe you could tell us a bit about yourself in just a second, and Relitza from Rappu. I would maybe, Ivona, because I ended on you there before going to Relitza, maybe you would start us just off by saying how you relate to the topic of empowering women, why you think it's incredibly important, and the fund that you're representing. Yeah.

0:35Hi. Hello. Thanks for the invitation. So I'm the GP partner at Fundingbox Deep Tech Fund. We invest mostly in CE and with our first fund, we invested in 17 companies. And, you know, we are a very small team for people and two of them are women. So actually it's 50%. So if you look at the statistics, it's really some exception. And also, if you look at our portfolio, about one-fourth are the startups that are co-led by women. So this is also something exceptional, if again, looking at the statistics. So this is us in a nutshell. Yeah, there's absolutely no doubt that we have a big problem with representation in European venture and starter plan.

1:28So let's go to you, Dipali, and tell us a bit about how you relate to the topic. Sure. So I've been actually working on this topic for the last 10 years. In fact, when I first started investing in women in building, you know, in technology companies, people were like, who are these women who are building large scale companies? Because, you know, the ecosystem in the UK has obviously evolved over the last 10 years. And when I first started out, there were probably not that many women building big companies. So I also joined, you know, Speed Invest after having invested in more than 30 female founders mixed teams as an Atomico scout and having done several, several years of mentoring, you know, post, you know, I started my career as investment banking in New York, moved on to the private equity side, so brought with me a lot of experience, investing experience and therefore worked with many, many women before joining Speed Invest.

2:18also co-founded Alma Angels which is a community to drive more funding into female founders and lastly have done a lot of policy work for the UK government on driving more money into high-growth female entrepreneurs so came to Speed Invest to lead gender lens investing where many hats at Speed Invest one of which is to make sure that we're investing in women across the different sectors we invest in and we have a publicly stated pledge of investing 30 % of Speed Invest which is a 350 million fund into female founders mixed teams and also i led our micro gp program through which we invested into female gps that you can send into female gps of that part of my so a lot of commitment from us as we invest and more generally uh it is it's a topic that i've been working on for many many years amazing dubabi and yes you are trailblazer in this space i'm incredibly happy that we have you with us let's go to another trailblazer so yona maybe you would tell a bit about first pick and yourself then?

3:17Absolutely. I'm not sure if I could call myself a trailblazer, probably. So very happy to be here. I think indeed, maybe as Ivana, like very similarly, we're running a fund with a four-partner team and two of them are female GPs and that happened accidentally. So there was no enforcement on purpose. And I think this is maybe the best, how I think venture capital market should be formed so naturally without any obstacles and the first pick is early stage fund focusing on the baltic region we're investing very early stage and obviously we're uh we are trying to catch any any good founder any good professional to invest into and i think even though we don't have any pledged wish to invest certain percentage of our fund in female or mixed teams, but now it stands at close to almost 40%, which is actually, I think, somehow we did it.

4:19And I think it has, and probably it's an effect of having female GPs as well. Yeah, I think it's one of the topics we'll definitely dive into, which is how do you overcome deal flow issues? And why is it? Because here we have your example, and Iwona, You described it just with Fundingbox as well. You're far above the average when it comes to funding women startup founders. So obviously you're doing something right. But the question is, which Manisa says, is if you have women, strong women partners, then definitely that's a big driver. But it's a big conversation I think we'll dive into in just a second.

4:57Raditza, I'll call on you to tell us what you're doing in this panel. Because not only, you know, I'm the host of the European DC podcast. we always talk talk talk only to vcs almost or lps but you're from another background so relitza please tell us a bit about yourself and ruby uh yes so i'm with the regional agency for entrepreneurship and innovations based in varna bulgaria and basically we are an umbrella organization that pulls together the quadruple of helix stakeholders we have universities being our members, the regional governments, municipalities, a lot of businesses also in a bank.

5:37But basically, we focus our activities on direct business support through delivering education, training, consulting, mentoring, and different other support services for startups. And basically, Back in 2018, we have started with a special track in our activities dedicated to the female entrepreneurs. So we run also our own acceleration program. And since 21, for a third year, we are also implementing EIT Food Evo program that is focused on female entrepreneurs in the agri-food sector. Besides the direct support that we provide, we also have a policy track. So we do surveys, research, analysis and we develop different strategic documents.

6:34Basically, in the last years, most of them have been focused on the female entrepreneurship development and the policies and support in order to provide a different view on the ecosystem that is more inclusive in terms of women. So, of course, we have a different perspective here in this panel, but I think it is a pleasure to see and to share all the activities that we also implement. Maybe, Arlidza, we can stay with you, because the first topic I wanted to dive into is basically what I call inclusive innovation policies, which, of course, obviously encompasses many things, But I'd love to ask you about when you've then created these initiatives that you just described, what have been like the core principles that you've tried to follow to ensure that you create programs that have real impact?

7:31And I know that the VCs tend to be very opinionated people when it comes to policies and ecosystem players. I'm sure that we will have a lot of coverage from Dipali, Yona, and Iwona on exactly how they think about the programs that we're seeing implemented across Europe. And maybe also some of the reports that you're going to mention now. So let me ask you the question, Relitza, what have been the core principles that you've tried to follow when you created your programs? First of all, when we actually started to work with female entrepreneurs, what we have noticed is that women are underrepresented in the innovation workforce.

8:14So we focus our efforts on striving for inclusive innovation ecosystem. And that is actually what we are trying to focus, being in the STEM field or also agri-food field. But also we have noticed that we have to follow the inclusive design in an innovation system. For example, while conducting user research and placing women at the center during testing throughout the different phases, the development phase, the designing phase, it is very, very important to have gender diverse design teams. And of course, a crucial point that we have noticed is that equitable access to capital is very important because what we see and what was noted by all the studies that we have performed, that women entrepreneurs often face barriers when it comes to accessing funding and resources.

9:18And of course, this is maybe the element we should focus here also, that the innovation ecosystem must help bridge this gap by bridging the access to funding products and services that actually fit the profile and the needs of women-led ventures. And also, not only that, but we have to focus on the networking opportunities and the resources such as incubators, accelerators, and different programs that offer mentorship and training. So this is our perspective. So Relitza just said something there, which almost kicked it perfectly to the rest of the investor crowd that we have here. the importance of getting investors to bridge the gap and Iwona and Yona and Dipali, all three of you have truly been bridging the gap that we're seeing.

10:11You're nowhere near the 0.2 % of the funding that's how you're distributing your funds. So maybe you could tell us a bit about what you think have allowed you to break the barriers that are when it comes to funding women? And Yona, maybe you'll start. I see you nodding. Oh, yeah. I keep on nodding with us. I agree. But it's probably not so much that we would develop our strategy based on policies. And though we adhere and we know that they're there, we don't really believe in strong enforcement. And I think this is personally for me. It's a debate internally. whether enforcement is something I believe can actually work in the long run or it should happen naturally.

11:05And I think depending on the region, it's very different. I think myself coming from Lithuania and covering Baltics, I think we're in a much better situation than the majority of Europe. That's why sometimes we might seem even ignorant and say, like, we don't know if there's really a problem. And we try to show that actually we have quite a lot of funds with female GPs. and then the percentage of the teams funded is actually of mixed and female-led teams is higher than in other regions. And I think that happens not because of enforcement, but exactly because there's just like more of this female energy in the market in general.

11:46Yeah, I was just going to say that it's interesting, right? Because as a VC, you need to back the best team, right? That's the fiduciary responsibility that you have to an LP, right? So you're not necessarily thinking man or woman. Of course, everybody has biases. And I think the problem here lies in the fact that it's a very male-dominated industry. And it's a very, you know, unless you're a first-time fund manager and building something from scratch, it is most ICs are male-dominated, right? There are not many female partners, senior women on ICs. So I think a lot of it is about looking at the, you know, the larger VC funds, because they can really actually move the needle here, right?

12:27Because the bulk of assets and management are with large, large funds. I think young funds have the benefit of being able to build something right from the start, right? So I think having processes in place, like I think at Speed & West, when I first started, there were, you know, I think there was, I'm trying to remember, we obviously had a female GP. We were one of the first funds to have had a female GP for many, many years. But we didn't have much female partner representation. You know, three and a half or four years later that I've been here, we have now a partner leading the health team.

12:58We have a partner leading the FinTech team, which is female or both women. I'm leading the emerging market team. And we just recruited a new partner in Dubai who's going to lead, you know, the Middle East portion of the new fund that we're trying to raise. So we suddenly have a lot more representation at the senior level that are women. and also on the IC that are women, right? So I think that changes the way certain businesses are viewed. And I do think that men tend to have this, you know, where I remember looking at many women's health companies and men would easily say, I don't understand what this is.

13:32And I was like, well, I got to understand robotics and I got to understand everything else. Why can't you understand female health, right? So are they having more female representation, ensuring that you're also having a pipeline of women who are you recruiting into the farm but making sure you're returning retaining them right because julia called me julia dus i don't know if you know her in berlin she literally called me two days ago saying i've looked at the data top 20 funds in europe 70 percent churn of women how you feel about this and i'm like this is something we talk about every single year the churn is really high and to be honest 70 is not natural churn so what are you doing internally to make sure that So the women that you're recruiting, that you're keeping, you're training, there's a clear, transparent progression.

14:18That is very important for these firms, right, to create this funnel of like more senior women to go through the organization. Thirdly, on the founder side, right, I think VC operates on basically on warm intros. That's how it is. If you get a warm intro from Zaman, you most definitely look at the pitch deck before you get a cold intro, before you get a cold email, right? So I think some of the processes internally need to be changed as to, you know, we had this type form, I remember, which we discussed at one of the partner meetings two years ago, because we used to get a lot of people applying through this gold type form on the website, which was essentially people not filling in enough information, people just sending through their pitch tags without reading our investment thesis.

15:01And we were like, should we get rid of this type form? And we sat down as a partnership and said, absolutely not. Maybe we make some tweaks to it. Maybe we set the bar higher. Maybe we add a video to it, but can't get rid of it because women and ethnic minorities don't have access to networks. And it's really important that they're an open firm so they can apply to us. We want to be this open brand. And we want to do everything possible to improve our pipeline because we want to see all these deals. We want to make sure that we're seeing, we want to make sure that we're doing office hours, that we are at accelerators, we are at places where there are more women just naturally congregating because they don't have access to networks.

15:41So I'm sorry to hog the conversation, but, you know, some of the things that we think about and work on quite closely outside of the public pledge, because the public pledge is good. But if you don't have enough, if you're not seeing the deals, then you're not really investing. right so. Yona Iwona relates we just heard where we talked about the pipeline problem here at Dipali is that one important thing is that we make sure that we have one at least one way to access VC funding you know in a what should we call it a low barrier manner one that does not require an established network but nonetheless you know and then that's important we all agree but nonetheless unless you guys have actually been able to attract significant women deal slow, because otherwise you would not be able to have a 40 % investment track record that are women.

16:38I wonder if you could shed a bit of light on what has allowed you to do that? Because I'm sure that your deal slow, I doubt that your deal slow has had that percentage. So in our case, this is similar to what Yona said, we do not have a dedicated policy. And I think you have to decompose it into the layers and stages. First of all, you have startups, then you have GPs, and then you have LPs. So now we are concentrating how to enter this world. it doesn't matter whether you are a gp or a female startup ceo you still have to have a network because this is very relation-based net you know job and especially at the very beginning if you start a startup you do not really have anything else to be analyzed just you and your idea and And then if you do not have a network that can somehow support you, that you are a reliable person, that you can really be trusted, it's really very hard to get funding.

17:51And then it doesn't really matter whether you are a startup or you are a GP. And in our case, you know, I entered VC world from academia world, and I just didn't know that there was a problem. So I didn't really have to fight anything because I was not aware. I started to be aware while we were developing the fund and during the meetings when I was very often the only female. Then I started to feel this is something different. I don't want to say that it was worse. It was just different. And then I started to realize that maybe there are some barriers. and again we didn't have an intention to be focused more on the female founders i think this is again just the relationship based effect that if you know more diverse folks then you also invest into more diverse startups so at least at the very very beginning it's very hard to have some policies You can have them as an example.

19:04Funding Books has also an accelerator. And there is, for example, a program for the Ukrainian startups that have a female founder just to build the network, not to train any other skills, basically, but to enhance them. So at this very, very beginning, what you need, it's really a network. And this is how you can crack into the systems. And to me, it's very hard to imagine the policies that would force in the VC world, in VC France, that would force us to have more equal representation other than just having a network because you cannot really analyze anything else. What Dipali mentioned, having a form that lowers the barrier, it's fine because this already allows you to enter into the world, even if you do not have this special network and if you do not know someone.

20:06But having a very strict policy, it's very hard for the early stage VC. I think, at least it's been when we see a very strong correlation between pipeline and investment, right? So one is about beefing your pipeline, because we are currently a large fund, like 350 million, and we are 35 % mixed teams. I mean, that is super high. I think the market is at 9%, right? For if you really look across Europe, not at smaller funds, but the large funds, what is driving this. And I think it's almost like a mindset shift, right? It's like you want people to be aware of their biases and work on them personally, professionally.

20:46Of course, we've done unconscious bias training. But ultimately, I walked into a board meeting the other day with one of my associates. He and I sit on the board together. He said to me, look, there's no women on this team. And that's what I want. That's actually realizing that, you know what, what is here, it needs to change, right? And he's a guy. And I think that is the mind shift that we need in VC, right? Or if you look at our CEO, I feel like he's always very empowering. You're giving women a voice in the organization to be heard. And I do think as a minority and as a woman, it is harder in VC to make yourself heard in a large organization.

21:28So I think it's something that has to come from the top and it's almost you have to build it into the DNA to be like, I need to make sure that I'm investing. And A, I'm looking at enough women and B, investing enough women, assuming that they are the top companies to invest in. It's not like you're going to lower the bar because it's a woman. Yeah, obviously. I'd love to ask you, Tipali, because you brought up a stat that baffled me. There's so much in this space that baffles me. I have a couple of things I want to bring up. but you mentioned a 70 % churn rate in the venture funds. I think it was in venture funds, right?

22:03Yeah, the top 20 venture funds. I think the data just come out or something. For women partners. For women in venture, not just partners, I guess across all levels, yeah. You're all women in venture, Wona, Yona, and Dipali. Ralitza, you work on the ecosystem side, but you're seeing this as well, I'm sure. what is the cause of this because we had multiple articles go out also uh following the uh the um the tech where you said that that said that many women are leaving venture and and then there were different different thought leaders describing why they thought so i'd love to ask you point blank here it's 70 term rate for women in venture that that seems terrible what are we doing wrong I feel like, you know, when I was asked this question and I said to Julia, I said, this is a number I see time and time again.

23:00I think 70 % is probably the highest I'd seen. So obviously I'd said there is some natural churn. And I think the last year the data is also probably, you know, we have seen layoffs in venture, right? Because it's been a tough time for venture. So I think there's some maybe like churn around because of budgets, et cetera, right? So maybe the number is slightly higher, but even if you say it's like 50%, you know, one out of two women that come into venture leaving, that's kind of ridiculous. If you think about it, I think, I do think there are a lot of biases in venture, which make it harder for women to get promoted.

23:36I think I remember the last time, I think it was maybe not more recently, but last year, a few women called me, right? One said, they literally called for advice one called and said i'm i'm um working at this john fund i learned how to speak john i was brought in because one of the associates was leaving to start a company and so i was his replacement now his company hasn't worked out and he's coming back and they want to lay me off do you have any advice for me what can i do here another one said i work with one partner only because that was a firm that kind of matched you you know principal to partner And so you constantly only work with that one person.

24:16And she said, I felt he has all these biases against female founders. And when I mentioned it to the senior team, now they want to get rid of me. So, I mean, I think there are lots of like things that we don't hear about unless, you know, people call you and tell you this. And these are just biases in the system, right? So I'm not sure what I can say, but I've lived and heard these stories for so many years at some point. I'm just like, what can I, I mean, of course, We are changing things by, you know, in our own organizations, changing things by investing in more female GPs, because when they're more female GPs, you're hoping they're more women, you know, IMs that, you know, it makes life slightly easier for them.

24:58But ultimately, I think what can really drive this is the LPs, because they are giving you money and they need to look at this data and they need to say, tell me why the churn in your organization is so high. And let me call those five women who left your organization because the people who are in the organization are not going to say anything because it's almost like a conflict. How can you expect someone to say something when you want money from them? So I think it's who is driving this. It's the people who are giving you the money. They need to make sure there are enough women. They need to encourage driving enough women in ICE and making sure that they understand why is this done in the organization.

25:39That's how I look at it. But I've dealt with this problem for so many years, and I've sometimes been really frustrated because I don't have enough answers outside of what we're already doing at Speedwest, right? Yeah, I think maybe I'll add here to Dipale. I really agree. I think it comes down a lot to LP level. Not maybe unfortunately, but it is how it is, right? Like, this is where requirements usually come from. And I know just, like, from some really trivial stories of big, like, quite established funds that actually had like some misconduct internally within the teams. And it was like kind of, you know, hidden away or something.

26:16And LPs went away with it. They said like, you know, like let's not tell anyone or something like that. And I think you said that's a really bad tone. And I hear that on and on again from really established funds. That's where maybe the churn is coming from. But I'm super surprised that it's so large. I didn't know it. Yeah, I literally was like 70%. I've never, you know, which is why I was like, I want to talk about it, but I really want to figure out what we can say here that is different and how we solve this problem, right? Because you keep seeing these numbers and it's very frustrating. I do think the turn is obviously higher because of layoffs, but can't really tell.

26:54But you really need to go deeper into the data to see what's going on. And I have seen some set of like data of layoffs, but not so much within venture capital but within tech companies lately and when we had this big hiring spree in 2021 and 2022 and now the people that first got laid off were actually either minorities or females and yeah it was really really disturbing to see that so that's i think also where and i won't be surprised if it's the same case in venture yeah exactly exactly because So a lot of hires were sometimes to tick the box. I have such a hard time going on from this topic.

27:39Because I think we answered this satisfactorily. And I think maybe it's so to say, this is symptomatic of the venture industry, right? Because we don't have a good answer. That's why the situation is as it is. Deepali, you point to two important points and initiatives you do inside, but you haven't stated them super explicitly. What you do at Speedinvest, the things that you have said, surely it's about hiring, thinking thoughtfully when you hire. Also, recognizing that having too few women is a bias inside the organization. also recognizing that both in terms of your decision-making process and what you think about as an investor, but also in terms of, and I'm here drawing a line to what you said, Yona and Yona in the beginning, probably that you have prominent female GPs in your firms means a lot for the deal flow that comes automatically.

28:39So if you're not making sure that you have the magnet, then you can do whatever you want with looking. but the fact of the matter is that if you're not in the networks in venture, you're not in the networks. So I think that it is incredibly important that you think about hiring. But what are the things? Because hiring is one part, but then if we say, what do you do to try and avoid that concern when it comes to one? I mean, absolutely. So we have obviously launched a female mentoring program where we match. And to be honest, we want to extend it also to junior men. we just started with the women where we paired them with more experienced you know partners in the organization last friday we were in vienna because it was our company retreat and we did we do like um negotiation and presentation skill sessions where all the women in the organization came in i mean of course there is something about training and making sure that you feel confident because men just do present slightly differently than women, right?

29:44They do present, when I think women, there might be stylistic differences, there might be, you know, there might just be softer in their approach. So there's something to be said about making sure that they are feeling empowered to, you know, do what they need to do on a daily basis. But outside of that, also making sure that they understand their career progression, right? Like what are exactly the case? Because venture is also a very like long game. You need to be able to show up rounds, which take up while you need to be able to show exits. And, you know, you need to really understand what is my path to the next level in this organization, right?

30:23And you're competing against men who might sometimes is the loudest voice in the room that gets the promotion. That's just natural, right? In every organization, there's people who are loud, the people who are lobbying for themselves. And I think making sure that women understand what is the next step in my career path. And again, for a small fund manager, a new fund manager is just simple, right? Because you are your boss and you can recreate these things. But when you're in a larger fund, you are working with politics. And how do you navigate that politics is something that we all need to learn how to do.

30:57So we are obviously making sure that we spend enough time with the women, making sure they have a voice making sure you know just making sure that they feel empowered enough to do their job and they can speak up and they need too many women also tend not to speak up right when they have a problem so having an open transparent culture of course having senior women on the team that you can approach you know I have internally women come to me all the time to speak about anything it could be a small thing it could be a big thing right so even men do but knowing that there's a person in the organization or two or three people in the organization you can talk to right that that they are going to go to bat for you or they can make sure that they're giving you the right advice so i think i think there's a lot you can do from a cultural perspective right in your own firms to make sure that you're building an inclusive because it's one thing that you recruit and then there's churn and then you have to start the cycle all over again but what are what are your what are the things that you can do culturally to make the organization more inclusive It's not just for women, it's also for ethnic minorities, right, who face an even bigger challenge.