An all-women founding group has as little as a 1-in-5000 probability of being funded in Australia based on the newest evaluation of funding information from Blackbird.
The VC fund released details on its efforts to close the gender investment gap for the 2025 monetary 12 months (FY25), with head of affect, Kate Glazebrook, saying “the final 12 months noticed one in every of our greatest years ever when it comes to investments made into feminine (co)based firms”.
Blackbird’s “headline objective” of 40% of its funding committee (IC) pitches that includes groups with a minimum of one feminine (or non-binary) founder stays past attain for the third 12 months in a row, sitting as an alternative at round a 3rd of these fronting as much as ask for cash.
“Regardless of massive efforts, our high of pipeline quantity didn’t match the highs of FY24,” Glazebrook mentioned of the numbers.
“However, we noticed enchancment elsewhere within the pipeline, and particularly, capital investments.”
However the excellent news is Blackbird “made first bets on 9 new feminine (co)based firms”, up 80% on the 5 in each FY23 and FY24 – a peak in 12 years of investing. That features core funding backing, principally in pre-Seed or Seed rounds; in addition to follow-on cheques for portfolio firms.
That translated to 32% of the brand new investments out of our ‘core’ fund, or 35% of all new investments,” Glazebrook mentioned, including that it represents a 9% improve in the share of new investments into all-female and blended groups over two years
“In monetary phrases, these groups took a few quarter (24%) of the full {dollars} we invested into new firms from our core fund, or a whopping 61% should you embody all new investments,” she mentioned.
The toughest half for the VC is discovering the suitable kind of ladies, Glazebrook mentioned.
“Our largest problem is top-of-pipeline: assembly extra ladies founders pursuing companies that match our mandate,” she mentioned.
“And so whereas we didn’t fairly make our goal on the funding committee pitch stage, we’re persevering with our efforts, notably on the high of the funnel this coming 12 months. ”
Blackbird has outperformed the market extra broadly in terms of investing in ladies founders, however the sheer maths of enterprise funding exhibits how unattainable the duty will be.
Glazebrook mentioned Blackbird invests in 1-2% of the businesses that come into the VC’s pipeline. All-women groups symbolize 2% of that funding. That’s on a par with the trade numbers extra broadly.
That implies that within the pipeline, the prospect of an all-female group being funded sits between 0.04% and 0.02% – between a 1-in-2500, and 1-in-5000 probability.
The VC had almost 1800 offers added to its pipeline in FY25. Round 39% got here from all-female or blended groups.
Of 146 all-female groups, 42% of these startups made it to the IC. That falls to 24% for blended groups from 560 within the pipeline, however rises to 42% once more for 1091 among the many all-male groups.
The Blackbird funding pipeline and outcomes. Supply: Blackbird
An equal probability
However Blackbird’s head of affect argues that making it to IC as a lady places you on a stage taking part in subject with the blokes.
“Our FY25 information has proven that feminine (co)based firms are about as more likely to succeed as their all-male counterparts. We’ve identified for some time that feminine (co)based groups that get to IC pitch are likely to have the next probability of getting a ‘sure’, however we’re now seeing that equalisation throughout the entire pipeline,” Glazebrook mentioned.
“If we will preserve this, the problem shifts much more clearly to sourcing: growing the amount of ladies founders we meet in our funding mandate.
“We spent FY25 experimenting with concepts in that house. Curiously, these efforts didn’t translate to the next quantity of leads, however the improved conversion tells us one thing about getting higher matches.”
Glazebrook mentioned they “appeared for tactics to evolve the narrative away from simply being a dialog about how little money goes to ladies founders”.
However amid what seems to be like spectacular numbers, there’s one factor value noting in 60% of the money going to blended groups, in comparison with 39% of Blackbird’s investments going to blokes (and no, we’re unsure how, with 2% going to all-women groups, the VC managed to speculate 101%, however that’s all-in dedication for you) that 60% contains Airwallex, with Lucy Liu as cofounder.
A clearer metric is the proportion of offers executed: 8% for all-women, 27% for blended groups, and 65% for all-lads.
You’ll be able to slice an onion quite a lot of alternative ways. But it surely’s nonetheless an onion.
You’ll be able to learn Kate Glazebrook’s full analysis on the gender funding gap here.
Blackbird’s investments in women-led startups in comparison with the broader VC market. Supply: Blackbird
