Overview
The year 2021 is notable because nearly everything in the financial world is on the rise. Venture capital investment is at an all-time high. Sectors such as cryptocurrency, security, and telehealth are experiencing exponential growth. The number of big rounds and exits continues to grow. Despite the positive trends, recent Crunchbase data shows that for the first eight months of 2021, only 2.2% of venture capital funding went to startups started by women. Women of color saw an even lower number, with only 0.2% of venture capital funding invested in non-white female business owners. That’s a lower share than any of the previous five calendar years.
Teams with both male and female founders received 11.7% of the overall investment by the end of August this year. That represents an about median level compared to the previous five calendar years, during which mixed-gender teams received an average of 12 percent of financing.
The problem is you have an entire industry that only invested in men, generation after generation. This is one of the reasons it is so important for diversity in the ranks of decision-makers in venture funds to accelerate.
Julie Sandler, MD Pioneer Square Labs for CNBC.com
According to recent research, women influence up to 80% of worldwide purchasing decisions and control $20 trillion in global consumer spending. On the other hand, they hold only 24 percent of senior positions worldwide.
Erica Schlaikjer from Medium has listed the following systemic reasons for the lack of gender parity:
Double standards
According to a Morgan Stanley analysis, investors see fewer pitches from women and minority entrepreneurs, and when they do, those entrepreneurs are held to higher standards.
Prejudice and bias
Male VCs considered young male entrepreneurs seeking finance as “promising,” but young female founders were viewed as “inexperienced,” according to Harvard Business Review research.
Lack of decision-making power
Only 9% of venture capital company investment decision-makers are women.
Clueless men
Let’s go back to the famous saying of Paul Tudor Jones, the hedge fund billionaire, who told an audience of University of Virginia students, alumni, and others that bonding with a kid is a “focus killer,” making it impossible for moms to be successful traders. He believes that as long as women continue to have children, males will dominate the business. No comment here.
Looking into the above, even though women start businesses at double the rate as men, it is no wonder why just 2% of female-owned enterprises generate more than $1 million in sales. On the other hand, men-owned enterprises are 3.5 times more likely to exceed $1 million in revenue, according to recent studies.
Women-led businesses are key economic drivers. They employ 18 million people and generate US$2 to US$3 trillion in the US economy alone. Yet, their companies rarely scale as large as they could.
Kerrie McPherson, Principal Ernst & Young LLP for PRNewswire
In terms of investment, Fidelity Investments’ 2021 Women and Investing Study shows that Women outperform men by 40 basis points, or 0.4 percent, regarding investment returns.
It demonstrates that women are great investors, and when they take action, it can work out quite well for them.
Lorna Kapusta, head of women investors at Fidelity for CNBC
We consider that all women entrepreneurs should be praised and honored; hence we gathered the below list of 628 women founders and investors in various industry sectors.
If you are committed to creating value and if you aren’t afraid of hard times, obstacles become utterly unimportant. A nuisance perhaps, but with no real power. The world respects creation; people will get out of your way.
Candice Carpenter, CEO of iVillager
Namepicks
23andMe
Founded by Anne Wojcicki, 23anMe is a DNA testing technology company that helps people understand their ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits.23andMe has raised a total of $1.1 billion in funding over 18 rounds and has a post-money valuation in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion as of Dec 1, 2020, according to PrivCo.
You can see 23andMe means business by looking at their domain name choice – the brand has secured 23andMe.com, an exact brand match name with the global .com extension.
Abatable
Abatable is a robo-advisor for high-quality carbon offsetting. The company was founded by Maria Eugenia Filmanovic in 2021 and has raised $125,000 in funding in a pre-seed round so far.
The startup has chosen to operate on the exact brand match domain name abatable.com.
Goldmine
Rachael Gorjestani and Tina Hardison are the founders of Goldmine, a wellness brand on a mission to create tasty and natural stress solutions using adaptogenic herbs.
The company operates on the drinkgoldmine.com domain name. Goldmine by Ivanti owns the .com domain name.
Ritual
Ritual is a health technology company that creates “clean” multi- and prenatal vitamins with essential nutrients for women. Katerina Markov Schneider founded the company in 2015. Ritual has raised a total of $40.5 million in funding over five rounds.
Ritual.com is the domain name this startup has chosen to operate on; it perfectly matches their brand name, and the .com extension is what visitors intuitively lean towards when typing a web address. The business was initially known as Ritual Vitamins, but Katerina knew such a name was limiting and did not match her vision for the brand. You can see the story of how she got the domain name Ritual.com below.
In this week’s episode, 🔥 @katerinamarkov (CEO of @Ritual) tells how she acquired the https://t.co/kES3B5ax62 domain name & the importance of a strong domain name to DTC brands
— jason@calacanis.com (@Jason) September 17, 2020
Full episode 👇
📺: https://t.co/05PN2MuwCl
🍎: https://t.co/58ZnmEmxtM
🎧: https://t.co/aqgmdPDJjK” pic.twitter.com/5qGs1nbmeD
Thinx
Thinx is a female hygiene brand that was the first to introduce “period-proof underwear.” Antonia Saint Dunbar founded the company in 2013 in New York City. Thinx has raised a total of $26.5 million in funding over three rounds.
The company has secured the thinx.com domain name, they seem to have initially launched on shethinx.com as the EBM forwards to that.
Highlights
The majority of the women-founded companies on our list, 457 out of 628, have secured a .com extension domain name.
37 companies operate on .co extension. .co domain name extension was introduced in 1991 AD and was originally registered for Columbia. Its been later transformed to cc generic TLD name.
The popular among tech startup extensions .IO and .AI are a preferred choice by 28 and 19 companies, respectively. 17 entries have secured an .ORG extension domain name. .Org is a top-level domain extension dating back to 1985. It is an abbreviation for « organization » and was initially meant to be used for organizations that don’t fit under the other initial seven extensions available. In the years to follow .org became the chosen extension for non-profits, open-source projects, and communities, which is how it is perceived now.
More than half, 331 out of 628, operate on exact brand match domains. This is often the case with global brands or brands that aspire to become global.
13 brands have a hyphen in their name. Adding hyphens is not advised since it adds complexity for consumers who frequently overlook it while typing in a domain name.
While we make every effort to ensure the data on our site is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, we cannot guarantee its reliability. Our data is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or other advice. We strongly recommend that you independently verify any information before relying on it.
Other resources
- Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: A Look into the World of Women-Founded Brands and Their Naming Strategies
- Discussing Thought Leadership, Innovation, Women in Business and More with Daria Vodopianova
- The Importance of Investing in a Strong Domain Name for Your Business
- How Independent is Your Brand?
How does your brand name match your company vision? What new horizons can a better name open? Get in touch if you feel your brand deserves a better name, we are always happy to help.
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