Female-led start-ups have crowdfunding advantage
CROWDFUNDERS are more likely to support a female-led start up than a male-led start-up, new research has shown.
According to data from the crowdfunding platform Seedrs and law firm Joelson, a massive 100 per cent of female-led businesses were able to reach or exceed their fundraising targets in 2018, compared with just 80.9 per cent of businesses with male founders. 90 per cent of businesses which had a male and a female co-founder were able to meet or exceed their targets.
However, the research also showed that just eight per cent of all funded businesses on Seedrs had a female leader, suggesting that women are more cautious about using crowdfunding until they have a gully-formed product or service to offer.
Read more: Seedrs reports record year after flurry of P2P fundraises
“If you are a female founder, crowdfunding platforms could represent a growing and exciting way forward for your company’s growth,” said Philippa Sturt, managing partner at Joelson.
“Crowdfunding is undeniably popular and advantageous to female-led businesses, and here at Joelson, we are keen to help women push past gender bias during their fundraising process and will use our knowledge and expertise of crowdfunding for our many start-up clients, to help female-led businesses on the path to achieving their investment goals.”
Sturt added that the global crowdfunding market was valued at $10.2bn (£7.7bn) in 2019 and is expected to reach $28.8bn by 2025.
Crowdfunding has proved to be a popular way for peer-to-peer platforms to raise equity funding. Over the past year, The House Crowd, Assetz Capital, CapitalRise and CrowdProperty have all used the Seedrs platform to raise a combined total of millions of pounds in funding.