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For Saumya Bhatnagar, being the only woman in a room is far from a novel experience. An engineer by training and currently the co-founder and chief product officer at AI sales rep startup Jeeva, she remembers being the sole girl in her high school's 170-person <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/5-tips-women-career-coding-twilio-2020-8">coding class</a> — and that none of her male peers would sit next to her."I had to make space for myself, and there were plenty of micro and macro aggressions in the grand scheme of things that I had to talk my way through," she told Business Insider. "At the end of the day, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/women-left-out-of-the-ai-investment-boom-risks-bias-2023-10">it's a man's world</a> in the VC, startups, and AI space."Bhatnagar isn't alone in her journey. Although the number of women-founded startups has increased, less than 3% of venture capital funding went to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capital-decline-hurts-female-founders-gender-gap-startup-funding-2023-12">female-only founding teams</a> in 2022, according to PitchBook.A handful of women who are well-known as leaders in the AI space — including "Godmother of AI" <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-like-khosla-and-a16z-backing-robotics-that-use-ai-2024-7">Fei Fei Li</a>, Anthropic president and co-founder Daniela Amodei, and OpenAI's former chief technology officer Mira Murati. But others building startups report facing various gender-related obstacles to success, including bias in the fundraising process, limited mentorship opportunities, and difficulty building meaningful business relationships with men.In the AI sector specifically, which has surged in popularity since the release of ChatGPT two years ago, the challenges for female founders are even more pronounced. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-18-women-who-made-partner-vc-firms-in-2023-2023-11">AI continues to attract significant VC interest</a>, but women in the space face additional barriers compared to their male counterparts, starting at the education level.While a degree in engineering or computer science isn't a requirement for launching an AI company, it's often a prerequisite for techies building foundational models to tackle complex machine-learning problems. Women accounted for just 22% of AI and computer science PhD programs in the US in 2019, according to a Deloitte study.Women in 2020 made up an estimated 26% of data and AI positions in the workforce, per a World Economic Forum report. And <a target="_blank" href="https://www.uktech.news/diversity/ai-funding-women-founders-20240319">recent data from the UK </a>shows that only about 4% of AI startups in the country have women founders.Although Bhatnagar is among the small group of women in the space with advanced technical chops, she says she still notices the gender imbalance in the AI world — and that it, at times, has led to her feeling impostor syndrome and burnout.Developing relationships with other women working in the AI space has become a vital lifeline, she said. An active member of online and in-person groups, including <a target="_blank" href="https://www.womenandai.com/">Women and AI</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://thewomenweadmire.com/">Women We Admire</a>, Bhatnagar said that she's made connections that support her in navigating difficult business dynamics, connecting with female investors, and finding solace in shared experiences."Women are not comfortable asking for help, and there's this idea that perfectionism needs to be showcased at all times," she said. "Finding a community of women has helped me take risks and realize that I'm actually doing okay," she said.Vivien Ho, a partner at early-stage fund Pear VC, has watched the meteoric rise of buzzy AI startups during the last two years and noticed that many are run by men, she said. But as a longtime community builder in the Bay Area tech scene, this didn't jive with what she was seeing on the ground. There were plenty of women interested in building AI companies, she said. Many just didn't know how to start.This observation was the catalyst for the Female Founder Circles, a community for women engineers interested in building AI startups. Each FFC cycle welcomes a cohort of around 50 women for two months of programming that includes fireside chats with existing female AI founders, company-building workshops with Pear investment partners, and other in-person events designed to help women build meaningful relationships with one another, such as pitch competitions, spa days, and public speaking practice.Demand for FFC has exploded, Ho said, with more than 500 women applying for the most recent cohort that kicked off last month. And the program has already been a success: more than 70% of participants end up incorporating their startups, and at least five women have matched with another female co-founder in their cohort, she said."Three of our FFC founders have already raised Series Bs, which is pretty incredible," Ho told BI. "We first meet them, and they're really shy, and then three years later, they're running a 100-person company and making eight figures. It's incredible to see how we can build a community that makes a difference."As women in AI create opportunities that could help them succeed, their work parallels women in another once-white-hot subsector of the startup world: at the height of the crypto craze, female-led blockchain startups earned about 6.4% of venture dollars in the third quarter of 2022, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.bitget.com/blog/articles/bitget-report-the-gender-gap-in-blockchain-startup-funding-press-release">according to data from Bitget</a>.Funding in the space has dropped off dramatically during the last two years, and women continue to struggle when it comes to connecting with investors and closing rounds, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/08/29/what-web3-data-reveals-about-gender-inequality-in-the-crypto-industry/">Forbes recently reported</a>.For Shreya Rajpal, Pear VC's FFC was one of the first times she felt genuine, positive support from the people around her. As a software engineer who cut her teeth in startups and on Apple's machine learning initiatives, she was accustomed to being the only woman whose work was judged with more scrutiny than that of her male coworkers."There are a lot of men who aren't very supportive, and being the only woman on a team means that they're often an undue level of attention on your work, so you stand out, for better or for worse," Rejpal told BI. "Pretty early on, it was obvious that I kind of needed to justify my space in the room a lot more compared to other folks."Fast forward to today, and Rajpal is the CEO and co-founder of Guardrails AI, which builds risk and reliability systems for generative AI programs. As she's progressed in her career, she's made an effort to build community with other women in tech. It's work that takes significant time, but it's been "life changing" in terms of succeeding as a founder and well worth the effort, she said.Guardrails earlier this year raised a $7.5 million seed funding round led by Zetta Venture Partners with participation from Pear, Bloomberg Beta, and GitHub Fund.In addition to participating in bigger groups like FFC, Rajpal has sought out mentorship opportunities with other women in engineering, machine learning, and project management."I became friends with a woman who is five to six years older than me and in the industry for that much longer, doing the things that I wanted to do," she said. "Hearing from her and what worked for her, in terms of changing jobs and talking to her about how she made those decisions, was the stuff that ended up being really impactful for me."Stephanie Guo, a partner at Sapphire Ventures based in San Francisco, is constantly iterating on community events for women interested in AI that strike the right balance between informational – think fireside chats and panel discussions – and informal ways for women to form connections that turn into mentor relationships.These events aren't just for would-be founders: Guo says that while the number of female-funded AI startups can sometimes seem "abysmally small," she's encouraged by the number of women who hold leadership positions at AI startups, funds, and bigger companies."We're creating both the space to have dialogue, but also a networking opportunity," Guo told BI. "These relationships stick, and there are business opportunities that actually form from them."

For women building AI startups, finding community has been the key to success

Women-led startups that are unicorns in the making — Here are the top 7 companies

<ul class="summary-list"><li>If elected, Kamala Harris would be the first female president of the United States.</li><li>Her presidency could have a far-reaching impact on businesswomen in leadership positions.</li></ul>If Vice President Kamala Harris ascends to the Oval Office, it could have a rippling impact on women in business everywhere.Only two weeks into her presidential campaign, Harris has garnered <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-win-with-black-women-zoom-event-2024-7">overwhelming support</a> from Democrats and narrowed former President Donald Trump's lead in swing states.It's reminiscent of the hopes many women held in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced off against Trump. If it happens this time, it could usher in a new age for women in positions of power."Having a woman as president, I think, normalizes what women's leadership looks like across everything, whether that's the private sector, public sector, education, labor, business, military," Cynthia Richie Terrell, executive director of Represent Women, which advocates for women in politics, told Business Insider. "I think a lot becomes possible overnight."In the business world, companies with female CEOs outperform those led by men, according to the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.weforum.org/videos/gender-balanced-companies-outperform-less-equal-ones/#:~:text=Companies%20with%20female%20CEOs%20outperformed,%2Dled%20ones%20by%2010.5%25.">World Economic Forum</a>. The same is true for women-led hedge funds and women-led startups.Despite that success, women now run just 10% of Fortune 500 companies, a record-high that has remained the same since 2023."Those companies where women had a higher share in the board and in leadership were more likely to be profitable, and I think there's a clear connection to women in government," Richie Terrell said. "Women tend to bring those same skills, the ability to multitask, the ability to build networks, the ability to listen, which we hear a lot of times that women have a greater ability to do that."Jennifer Jeronimo, the CEO of Gaingels, a venture capital firm that prioritizes investing in companies with diverse leadership, told BI that "visibility and representation are crucial.""One reason I believe women receive only 2% of venture capital funding is that over 80% of VC funds lack women in decision-making roles," Jeronimo said. "A woman president, one of the world's most powerful roles, could normalize women in positions of power in certain industries and lead to more female decision-makers in venture capital. Additionally, after Kamala Harris's endorsement by Biden, women rallied to raise millions overnight for her campaign, proving their willingness to fund what matters to them."While it's early in her campaign but less than <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-trump-presidential-election-100-days-swing-states-2024-7">100 days from the election</a>, Harris will likely appeal to women more than the Trump-Vance ticket. Among women, Harris is polling nearly 15 percentage points higher than Trump, according to a recent poll from The New York Times and Siena College.Her favorability is paying off by the millions. The Harris campaign announced it raised $310 million in July, 60% of which were donations from women, the Associated Press reported.Meanwhile, Trump has a history of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-might-trigger-trumps-biggest-vulnerability-women-2024-7">alienating women</a>, and his VP pick in JD Vance hasn't helped matters. His <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jd-vance-vice-president-democratic-leaders-childless-sociopaths-2021-email-2024-7">past comments</a> disparaging <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jd-vance-defended-his-childless-cat-ladies-comment-2024-7">"childless cat ladies"</a> have come back to haunt him.

A Kamala Harris presidency could be a game changer for women in business

Robots and AI are being used to help women get pregnant. Is this the future of IVF?

<keyword id="6355629" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="google" source="Orion">Google</keyword> on Tuesday announced its <keyword id="14193636" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Startups-accelerator-programme" source="Orion">startups accelerator programme</keyword> that will nurture about 20 startups led by women founders in <keyword id="3658" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword>. The programme is aimed to help women founders address challenges that are unique to their experience, including fundraising, hiring and many others. The inaugural batch of Google for <keyword id="8826137" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Startups-Accelerator" source="Orion">Startups Accelerator</keyword> - India Women Founders programme will accept up to 20 women-founded/ co-founded startups in India, including startups at the minimum viable product stage, and support them through a three-month programme. The programme will place special focus on areas like access to networks, access to capital, hiring challenges, mentorship and many others which, for a variety of social reasons and low representation, prove challenging for female founders. In addition to these, the curriculum will include workshops and support around AI/ML, Cloud, UX, android, web, product strategy and growth, as well as provide access to a global community of women founders. India is the world's third largest startup capital, trailing only the US and China. It boasts over a 100 unicorns with 22 getting added to the list just in 2022, spanning verticals such as e-commerce, healthtech, fintech and many others. However, only 15 per cent of these <keyword id="3357129" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-unicorns" source="Orion">Indian unicorns</keyword> have one or more women founders. "The new programme is part of a larger effort by Google towards improving the representation of women across different sections of India's digitally-trained workforce, be it entrepreneurship, professionals looking to upskill or young graduates seeking a head start on their career, with the ultimate objective of making technology universally relevant and helpful," the tech giant wrote in a blogpost. The applications for the programme are open till July 10, it added. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/mukesh-ambani-and-disney-to-get-into-an-intense-bidding-war-for-another-ipl-package-heres-why-it-matters/articleshow/92203554.cms">Mukesh Ambani and Disney to get into an intense bidding war for another IPL package – here’s why it matters</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/elon-musk-lost-as-much-as-mukesh-ambanis-total-wealth-in-2022/articleshow/92203221.cms">Elon Musk lost as much as Mukesh Ambani's total wealth in 2022</a>

Google to launch accelerator programme for women entrepreneurs in India

<ul><li><keyword id="74945" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="women-entrepreneurs" source="Orion">Women entrepreneurs</keyword> are not far behind in founding the most valuable businesses of this millennium. </li><li>Ghazal Alagh of Mamaearth, and Saumya Singh Rathore of Winzo, aged 35, each is the youngest woman in the list. </li><li>Ruchi Deepak, co-founder of Acko, and Amrita Sirohia, co-founder, Amrita Sirohia, co-founder, INDmoney, at 41, are the eldest women in the list </li></ul>When it comes to founding valuable new businesses, women <keyword id="53533" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="entrepreneurs" source="Orion">entrepreneurs</keyword> are giving men a run for their money. We take a look at top ten <keyword id="19669428" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="youngest-women-entrepreneurs" source="Orion">youngest women entrepreneurs</keyword> in India according to the first edition of ‘India's Top 200 Self-made Entrepreneurs of the Millennia 2023’ launched by I<a href="https://www.idfcfirstbank.com/personal-banking/wealth/First-Private#home">DFC FIRST Private</a> Banking and <a href="https://hurunindia.com/">Hurun India</a>. Ghazal Alagh, 35, Gurugram Ghazal Alagh is a self-made woman entrepreneur and the co-founder of Mamaearth, one of India's leading brands of natural and toxin-free skincare and baby care products. Alagh's journey started with a personal need – she was struggling to find safe and effective skincare products for her son. This inspired her to create her own brand, Mamaearth, which has since become a household name in India and recently went public. Saumya Singh Rathore, 35, New Delhi Saumya Singh Rathore, co-founder of WinZO, has contributed to building India's leading social gaming platform in local languages, boasting a user base exceeding 100 million. Since its inception in 2018, WinZO has secured funding surpassing $100 million, supported by key investors like Griffin Gaming Partners, Makers Fund, Courtside Ventures, and Steve Pagliuca. Rajoshi Ghosh, 36, Bengaluru Rajoshi Ghosh, a serial entrepreneur, serves as the COO and co-founder of Hasura, a software technology company based in San Francisco. Beyond her role at Hasura, she has initiated five other startups. She holds the title of a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and commenced her professional journey as a published bioinformatics researcher specialising in genomics at the Genome Institute of Singapore. Dr. Garima Sawhney, 37, Gurugram Dr. Garima Sawhney, a co-founder at Pristyn Care, is a leading figure in India's healthcare. Renowned for her expertise in gynaecology, she embarked on her career as a doctor, honing crucial life skills during her tenure at a government hospital. Her leadership, born from compassionate patient care, has steered Pristyn Care to a valuation of $1.4 billion. Kanika Gupta, 39, Gurugram Kanika Gupta Shori holds the position of co-founder and COO at Square Yards, an integrated real estate marketplace. With an educational background from Wharton Business School, she brings more than 11 years of experience in both banking and entrepreneurial pursuits. Beyond her professional roles, Kanika actively contributes to initiatives centred around empowering women and supporting children's welfare. Vineeta Singh, 40, Mumbai Vineeta Singh is an Indian entrepreneur and investor who is the co-founder and CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics, a popular Indian beauty brand. Singh is also a judge on the Indian reality television show Shark Tank India. Singh is known for her tough questioning and her willingness to invest in businesses that she believes have the potential to succeed. Ruchi Kalra, 40, Gurumgram Ruchi Kalra, an entrepreneur from Gurgaon, has co-founded two unicorn startups – OfBusiness and Oxyzo with her husband, Ashish Mohapatra. Ruchi's successful business approach centres on extracting profit from each transaction, a strategy that has proven effective. She and her husband are the first couple who has founded two unicorns. Mabel Chako, 40, Bengaluru Mabel Chako, co-founder and chief operating officer at Open, boasts a 13-year entrepreneurial journey in financial technology. Her expertise spans intricate financial landscapes, honed through roles at Citrus Payment Solutions and PayU. Her founding of CashNxt in 2007 and Zwitch in 2013 (later acquired by Citrus Payments) underscores her entrepreneurial acumen and commitment to innovative solutions. Ruchi Deepak, 41, Mumbai Ruchi Deepak, co-founder of Acko, hails from Jamshedpur and pursued her bachelor's degree at Lady Shri Ram College, followed by Law at Delhi University. Ruchi aimed for meaningful innovation in financial services. Witnessing the industry's focus on selling to distributors rather than customers directly, she envisioned a shift. Co-founding Acko with Varun Dua, they leveraged technology to revolutionise insurance experiences. Amrita Sirohia, 41, Gurugram Amrita Sirohia, co-founder of INDmoney, embarked on her journey in the financial sector driven by a passion for technology and finance. Amrita's professional trajectory includes roles at renowned companies like Google and Barclays, which led to her understanding of financial complexities and technological innovation. Co-founding INDmoney, her aim was to democratise wealth management through tech-enabled financial solutions, empowering individuals to navigate and optimise their financial portfolios efficiently.

She power: The top 10 youngest women entrepreneurs in India

Mumbai, D'chica's, a brand that curates puberty-essential products tailored specifically to the needs and preferences of teen girls, has bagged a deal of Rs 80 lakhs with <keyword id="20292047" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="namita-thapar" source="keywords">Namita Thapar</keyword> and Vineeta Singh on the new episode of '<keyword id="19913228" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shark-tank-india" source="keywords">Shark Tank India</keyword> 3'. In a bid to propel D'chica to new heights of success, its co-founders, Richa Kapila and <keyword id="20348209" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="vani" source="keywords">Vani</keyword> Chugh from Delhi made a debut on the business reality show. From stylish bras and period panties to fashionable athleisure and footwear, the brand strives to empower young girls during their crucial teenage years with its meticulously crafted collection. Bound by both family ties as sisters-in-law and a shared passion for business, Richa and Vani, the founders of D'chica, embarked on a new entrepreneurial journey after facing setbacks with their previous venture focused on infants and toddlers. Despite the challenges that led to the closure of their initial business, the sisters-in-law remained undeterred. Instead, they embraced failure as a powerful teacher, drawing invaluable lessons from the experience. In 2019, they founded D'chica, a brand committed to celebrating the transition from adolescence to womanhood. They launched their first inner wear collection in 2020. Through their determination and hard work, Richa and Vani transformed D'chica into a brand that resonates with the Alpha and Gen Z generations. On the show, they asked for Rs 80 lakhs in exchange for one per cent equity. Amit Jain, CEO and co-founder of CarDekho Group, asked: "Do you do the manufacturing yourself or have you given a contract to someone for it?" Richa replied saying, "We currently have five manufacturing units which we operate out of." After seeing the products, <keyword id="20380308" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="namita" source="keywords">Namita</keyword> Thapar, executive director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals Ltd, said: "Dr. Garima is a new angel (pointing to the packaging)." To which the founders replied: "Dr. Garima is a consulting gynaecologist with us. We have onboarded a gynaecologist whom customers can reach out to for guidance. We do it for community building." Finally, they sealed the deal with Namita and Vineeta (Co-Founder and CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics), at Rs 80 lakhs for two per cent equity plus one per cent royalty until the sum is recouped. Sharing her excitement on being a part of the 'Shark Tank India', Vani Chugh, co-founder D'chica Fashion Lifestyle Private Ltd, said: "Shark Tank India helped our teen and young women inner-wear brand D'chica reach millions of Indian homes and create mainstream conversations about subjects as taboo as periods to common youth issues like body image and confidence." "With our body adapting bras, reusable period panties and chafing-free underwear D'chica is laser focused on the fast growing market of 12 crore plus girls," she added. 'Shark Tank India 3' streams on Sony LIV.

Body-adapting bras, reusable period panties & more help this startup bag ₹80 lakh from 'sharks'

Meet the women behind some of India’s very successful startups

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Each year since the New York Stock Exchange was founded, in 1817, hundreds of companies have gone public. Only 20 have been founded and led to an <keyword id="6354763" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipo">IPO</keyword> by <keyword id="624" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Women">women</keyword>.</li><li>There are many reasons women and minorities have been held back. Among them: Fewer than 13% of all VC decision-makers are women, and <a href="https://about.crunchbase.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Funding-To-Female-Founders_Report.pdf">less than 3% of all VC dollars</a> flow to companies led only by women.</li><li>To achieve gender equality, women need to found and join the next Fortune 500s to shape a diverse corporate culture from the beginning and accumulate generational wealth for themselves.</li></ul>2020 was a record year for initial public offerings in the US, with 442 logged as of December 14. Yet only five of those were companies founded and led by women, according to research by Business Insider and information provided by Nasdaq. Historically, only 20 women have ever founded and led a company through to an IPO.Some companies have gone public with female CEOs who were not their founders, but that number is small compared to the majority (at this writing, only nine companies have fit that description this year).The jarring discrepancy was pointed out by Julie Wainwright, the founder of the luxury consignment shop The Real Real. In May 2019, Wainwright became the 15th woman to found and take a company public.To achieve gender equality, the fastest way forward is to close the entrepreneurial gap and support more women founding Fortune 500s. That's because women aren't reaching powerful positions often enough when they go the traditional corporate route.Also, we need more women to try and become insanely rich.Money equals power, and the only way to generate enough wealth to become one of the world's most powerful people is to start a company.<h2>Corporate America is broken for women. They need to blow it up and rebuild it if they want more leadership positions.</h2>We know women fall behind men from the very first promotion.A 2019 <a href="https://leanin.org/women-in-the-workplace-2019">Lean In study</a> called this the "broken rung" in the corporate ladder. The workforce won't improve for women anytime soon.<ul><li>At the current rate, <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/03/equal-pay-day-is-march-31-earliest-since-1996.html">it will take until 2059</a> for women to achieve pay parity.</li><li>Women who do reach the top still hit a ceiling. They get stuck as COOs - the No. 2's.</li><li>Only 7% of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/us/fortune-500-women-ceos-trnd/index.html">Fortune 500 CEOs</a> are women.</li></ul>The best way to fix this isn't to blame or exclude men, who are in charge and can be powerful allies. But we also can't expect them to change all their unconscious biases, which can be blind spots.Instead, corporate America needs to be blown up and rebuilt, with <keyword id="61889" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Diversity">diversity</keyword> as a pillar from inception, led by more women and BIPOC founders.<h2>If women want to become as powerful as men, they need to create rivaling fortunes. The only way to do that is to start the next Fortune 500s.</h2><div type="image" title="rich founders" height="945" width="1170" msid="80116391" hostid="261"></div>Warren Buffett. Jeff Bezos. Bill Gates. The richest people in the world all started their own companies - or inherited their fortunes from someone who did.That's because founders tend to own large chunks of their companies when they exit, far larger portions than employees working for them ever could.If women want to become as powerful as men, they need to start the next Fortune 500s and create rivaling fortunes.But in the 204-year history of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq - where hundreds of companies go public each year - only 20 have been founded and led by women. Eighteen of those IPOs were in just the past seven years.When women do try to start companies, numerous pitfalls prevent them from scaling their ventures.Only <a href="https://medium.com/allraise/more-women-became-vc-partners-than-ever-before-in-2019-39cc6cb86955">13% of all venture-capitalist decision-makers are women</a>, according to an AllRaise.org follow-up to its 2019 report. Pitchbook reported that in 2019 <a href="https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/the-vc-female-founders-dashboard">2.7% of VC capital went to companies founded only by women</a>, while companies cofounded by both men and women garnered 14%.For women of color, the investment gap is even wider.<a href="https://www.digitalundivided.com/">DigitalUndivided</a> is a nonprofit social startup focused on programs and training that foster economic growth in Black and Latinx communities. In 2016 it launched <a href="https://www.projectdiane.com/">ProjectDiane</a>, a biennial research study that tracks investment in companies founded by Black and Latinx women. Its latest report, released this month, showed some progress for these communities. But not enough.Total funds raised by Black and Latinx women in 2019 grew to $3.1 billion, ProjectDiane data shows. The number of Black women founders reported to hit the "million-dollar club" in investment rose to 93, compared to 34 in 2018, while 90 Latinx women hit that milestone.But the report points out glaring gaps. The median seed funding for <keyword id="6362513" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="startups">startups</keyword> overall is $2.1 million, but for Black and Latinx women founders the median is $475,000. For those raising less than $1 million, the median seed funding drops to $125,000 for Black women and $200,000 for Latinx women.Since 2018, Black and Latinx women have received only .64% of VC funding."Our mission is to create a world where all women own their work, where women have wealth," Lauren Maillian, the CEO of Digital Undivided, said. "It is only through our jobs, our careers, and our work, that is the path to wealth creation. Not just for women, for all people, but women of color get left behind that.""We upskill and re-skill and equip women of color to compete in these spaces and places that are not designed for them to succeed," Maillian said.<div type="image" title="Lauren Maillian, CEO of Digital Undivided" height="4000" width="5333" msid="80116395" hostid="261"></div><h2>When female founders do get funded, expectations are different</h2>Rent the Runway CEO Jennifer Hyman is one of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rent-runway-ceo-jenn-hyman-profile-during-covid-crisis-2020-9">the most successful female founders</a>. She has been outspoken about the different challenges men and women founders face, from investors and the press."I haven't been given the permission or privilege to lose a billion every quarter," Hyman said on CNBC, shortly after profitless Uber went public and cash-burning WeWork filed its now rescinded S-1.Julie Wainwright, the founder and CEO of The Real Real, said she sees three main barriers to entry for women in entrepreneurship. One of them is the expectations women set for themselves.<ul><li>Women aren't thinking about starting businesses or planning for outsized success early enough. And when they do, they aren't dreaming big enough. One survey of 57 women CEOs found that only 12% of them planned to be CEO someday. The rest had to be told it was something they should consider.</li><li>There aren't enough women in venture capital with big funds behind them who can lead large investments and write follow-on checks. "When you raise capital, if you're running something big, it will require more money, and that person who initially funded you will go back to their fund to lead the next round," Wainwright says. "And they have to have enough capacity to keep funding you so you're not left in the cold. . . . You need people with billions behind you."</li><li>There's no <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-mafia-members-careers-elon-musk-peter-thiel-reid-hoffman-2019-11">"PayPal mafia"</a> for women who can support female founders, rally behind them, and push through their success. The PayPal mafia refers to the early PayPal employees, including Max Levchin, Joe Lonsdale, and Peter Thiel, who've all gone on to be successful entrepreneurs, aided partly by their friendship during PayPal's startup days. "Those guys have a tremendous network where they're supporting each other," Wainwright says. "It's not a formal thing. But when people come up with ideas, they push them to think bigger. They've got the support of the mob once they go. And the mob isn't there to make sure they're successful. So because there are not enough women in startups, there are not enough mobs."</li></ul><div type="image" title="Julie Wainwright The Real Real" height="1079" width="1438" msid="80116399" hostid="261"></div>Despite the barriers, it's time for more women to try. To stop thinking What if it fails? and instead think What if it works?For an extra nudge, Wainwright knows a widely kept secret: Most successful startup founders aren't anything special. The difference is they tried, and you didn't."To be honest, half the people that I meet are not a Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or even an Elon Musk," she said."What they are is they're determined. They have a goal and they have a big vision and they don't give up, and they did it. They didn't think about everything that would possibly go wrong. They thought, I am going to do this, I can make this happen."<h2>Women starting businesses is great for the economy </h2><div type="image" title="mckinsey gender study" height="1234" width="1572" msid="80116400" hostid="261"></div>Gender equality in business isn't only a moral imperative. When it's achieved, it improves a company's bottom line and boosts the global economy.A recent McKinsey study found that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/closing-gender-gap-could-add-as-much-as-28-trillion-to-global-economy-2019-3">gender equality could unlock up to $28 trillion</a> in global GDP.Companies also perform better when more women are in power. A Bank of America paper found that S&amp;P 500 companies with more diverse boards and a higher percentage of women in leadership positions delivered higher returns on equity.Fortune 1000 companies with female CEOs have been found to perform three times as well as those led by men."Understanding the link between women's empowerment and the wealth and health of societies is crucial for humanity," Melinda Gates wrote in "The Moment of Lift.""If you want to lift up humanity, empower women, she said. "It is the most comprehensive, pervasive, high-leverage investment you can make in human beings."

Hundreds of startups go public every year. Only 20 have ever been founded and led by women.

Meet 22 women who launched and led startups to an IPO, an accomplishment few female founders have ever reached

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The CEO of Pankhuri died at 32 from sudden cardiac arrest, the company said.</li><li>Pankhuri Shrivastava founded Pankhuri in 2019 as a women-centric social-media platform.</li></ul>Pankhuri Shrivastava, an Indian entrepreneur and the founder of the woman-centered social platform Pankhuri, died at age 32 on Friday after experiencing sudden cardiac arrest, her company announced in <a href="https://twitter.com/askpankhuri/status/1475361649871577090">a tweet</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CX-imvRNqt8/">an Instagram post</a> this week.Shrivastava founded multiple startups, including Pankhuri, in 2019, and Grabhouse, a rental company that was sold to the online marketplace Quikr in 2016, <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/pankhuri-shrivastava-founder-of-grabhouse-and-pankhuri-dies-at-32-101640592929976.html">according to the Hindustan Times</a>.Pankhuri's <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.pankhuri">description in the Google Play store</a> says it's a social platform where women can watch livestreams, take educational courses, communicate, and shop, among other things.Shrivastava's <a href="https://twitter.com/pankhuri16/status/1474038642943221763">last tweet</a>, posted Thursday, was about the challenges of discerning a job candidate's skills through a brief interview. Earlier this month she <a href="https://twitter.com/pankhuri16/status/1471438599547617287">tweeted photos of Pankhuri employees</a> working in an office.Shrivastava was born in the city of Jhansi, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and earned an engineering degree from the State Technological University of Madhya Pradesh, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/pankhuri-shrivastava-cause-of-death-b1983274.html">according to The Independent</a>.She got married in late 2020, sharing <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CKzAjg4HcVj/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;ig_rid=e60eed77-8274-465e-9bb1-d3b0453fb0d0">a celebratory post on Instagram</a> in February."Amidst all the variables out of my control, I chose a beautiful constant for life," she wrote.Shrivastava's loss has been felt across the Indian digital-startup community.Surge, a rapid-scale-up program launched by the venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital <keyword id="11892747" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword> that <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/social-community-platform-pankhuri-lands-3-2-million-from-sequoias-surge-others/articleshow/84367946.cms?from=mdr">led a $3.2 million funding round for the Pankhuri platform</a> in July, mourned the CEO <a href="https://twitter.com/_surgeahead/status/1475031140293496833">in a tweet</a> on Sunday.Shailendra Singh, a managing director of Sequoia Capital, <a href="https://twitter.com/singh_sequoia/status/1475037026277756930">tweeted on Sunday</a> that Shrivastava "had so many ideas, insights" and was "full of enthusiasm and creativity as a founder."Rajan Anandan, another Sequoia managing director, <a href="https://twitter.com/RajanAnandan/status/1475059976460640261">tweeted</a>, "We loved having Pankhuri in our Surge family and will miss you so dearly."The venture capitalist Vani Kola called Shrivastava a "vivacious bright woman full of ideas and full of life.""We lost a bright and young founder, but I know her legacy will live on," Kola <a href="https://twitter.com/VaniKola/status/1474963216392658944">wrote on Twitter</a>. "It was truly a privilege to know Pankhuri."Shrivastava's company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The founder of Pankhuri, a women-centric social-media platform, has died at 32 of cardiac arrest, company says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>New research finds that female-led AI companies are missing out on the global rush to invest in AI.</li><li>AI startups founded by women in the UK raised six times less than those founded by men in the past decade.</li></ul>The world may be in the middle of an AI arms race – but new research has suggested that female-led startups are missing out.A <a target="_blank" href="https://www.turing.ac.uk/news/women-miss-out-ai-venture-capital-investment-new-analysis-finds">report from the Alan Turing Institute's </a><a target="_blank" href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.turing.ac.uk%2Fresearch%2Fresearch-projects%2Fwomen-data-science-and-ai-new&amp;data=05%7C01%7Cjdungate%40turing.ac.uk%7Cfcc69f1faa53426aa88808dbc0f76147%7C4395f4a7e4554f958a9f1fbaef6384f9%7C0%7C0%7C638315940930787471%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=TBmK4Z6G4YHP9LFnkBTjo813dIsTMwy1ZA1nxPKqpnU%3D&amp;reserved=0">Women in Data Science and AI</a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-programmes/public-policy/public-policy-themes/women-data-science-and-ai"> team</a> revealed that while global investment in AI is booming, the vast majority of funding is flowing into male-dominated companies, with 77% of venture capital investments in the UK last year going to startups without any female founders. This occurs even as the number of female-founded AI companies that are launching, rises. Analyzing data from Pitchbook, researchers found that despite VC firms investing £35 billion [$42.5 billion] in UK-based AI software firms over the past decade, less than half a percent of that funding went to companies with all-female founder teams.These women-led startups raised six times less on average than those founded by men over the last decade, the data showed. The report suggests that female-founded companies are missing out on the AI investment bonanza that began with the launch of ChatGPT last year.And researchers warned that the gender disparity risks exacerbating the well-documented issues many AI systems have with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-discrimination-bias-worse-problem-than-sentience-2022-6">bias and discrimination</a>."When we talk about designing responsible and safe AI, it's really important that we consider what's happening in the whole of the AI ecosystem," Turing Institute research fellow and project co-lead Dr Erin Young told Insider."That obviously includes things like AI design, the kind of data being used to train these models – but it also includes the funding channels."We need to think about the types of AI technologies that are being funded and how these AI technologies are being used, who they might benefit, and who they might harm," she added.Aligned AI CEO Rebecca Gorman told Insider that female founders are often subject to more scrutiny than their male counterparts – something that is now hurting VC firms as global economic conditions take a turn for the worse."Funding a founder because he met a stereotype was a successful strategy during the zero interest period, as the most important quality was whether he would raise a larger round of funding 12-18 months down the road," she said."Funds that continue to follow this strategy will learn too late that they've been selecting the wrong founder and startup characteristics for a post-zero interest rates world," she added.Bias against marginalized groups has long been an issue with AI, with generative models having a tendency to inherit prejudices from the vast datasets they are trained on.OpenAI's DALL-E 2 image generator was found to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-art-generators-dalle-stable-diffusion-racial-gender-bias-ceo-2023-3">overwhelmingly produce images of white men</a> in response to prompts for "CEO" and "director" upon its release last year, and Amazon was forced to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-built-ai-to-hire-people-discriminated-against-women-2018-10">scrap an AI recruiting tool in 2017</a> after realizing that it discriminated against women.A debate is now raging over how to prevent the proliferation of biased models and products, with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/29/we-have-a-bias-problem-california-bill-addresses-race-and-gender-in-venture-capital-funding">California close to passing a law</a> that would require VC companies to disclose the race and gender of the founders of the start-ups they fund.Angela Hoover, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based AI search engine company Andi, told Insider that the lack of diversity in the AI and venture capital industries is a concern."I do worry about bias and discrimination in AI models," she said. "One of our biggest priorities is ensuring AI models are fair and unbiased," she said."While AI is heavily male-dominated and we still see a big gender disparity at AI events in San Francisco, we're hopeful this will change as more women become involved in AI companies. The more diversity we have in AI, the better," she added.Dr Young told Insider that VC firms need to improve their recruitment policies, foster more inclusive cultures, and monitor their investment strategies to mitigate bias to ensure responsible AI development."This recent explosion in investment in generative AI has made the need for women and marginalized groups to have an equal place in tech entrepreneurship and the VC ecosystem much more urgent," she said."It is crucial that we encourage inclusion and equity in these fields to promote responsible AI design," she added.

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