CEO Paige Craig of Arena Ventures @paigecraig wrote a great article below on Woman Founders; what they face in the industry, why he believes it is the way it is, and gives great advice for changing it. #ifshecanican.  It is encouraging and inspiring!

“Half Our Start-ups Are Founded By Women And I Am Surprised and Delighted.”  As it should be.

 

Female Founders at Arena

Female Founders (Above) Clockwise from top-left: Leura Fine, CEO of Laurel & Wolf; Leiti Hsu, Susan Ho, Amy Guo, Co-Founders of Journy; Akta Adani, CEO of India Boulevard; Danielle Morrill, CEO of Mattermark; Margaret Laney, CMO of Mytable

Female Founders (Above) Clockwise from top-left: Payal Kadakia, CEO of Classpass; Niniane Wang, CEO of Evertoon; Kanjun Qiu, CEO of a stealth AI startup; Christina Saas, COO of Andela; Amanda Micallef, COO of Arsenic

So if most of us are out there aiming to invest in great people; and if we can also agree that founder potential is evenly distributed among the broad populations of women and men, then why are most gender investing ratios so fundamentally skewed?

Here’s my opinion: Most investors don’t have a real framework or techniques for investing in so called “amazing founders”