The financial feminists
Sisters with capital are doing it for themselves
Jennifer Reynolds is worried.
“At the start of the pandemic, women were losing jobs in equal numbers to men, but men have since gone back to work in far greater numbers,” Toronto Finance International’s chief executive said. “About half of women who have not gone back to work are not even looking. That’s a big problem.”
Between February and October, more than 20,000 women in Canada fell out of the labour force while nearly 68,000 men joined, according to research by Royal Bank of Canada. Why? The simple answer is that industries dominated by women were hardest hit by the need to shelter in place.
For example, in October, 80 per cent of the 48,000 people who lost their jobs in the female-dominated food services and hospitality industries were women. That same month, 75 per cent of the 55,000 people hired in the male-dominated professional, technical and scientific industries were men.
“The longer you’re out of the workforce, the harder it is to catch up from a skills-and wage-gap perspective,” Reynolds said. “I think we are seeing a decline in overall economic equality in Canada. I’m worried for today, but I’m also worried about the long-term ripple effects going forward.”
The answer, Reynolds said, isn’t just for governments and businesses to step up their efforts to help bring women back into the workforce, it’s also for more women to start and scale their own businesses.
“There are a lot of programs out there, both public and private for female entrepreneurs. The majority of financial institutions have programs to channel funds or make loans available to women. They recognize this has been a problem,” she said. “I think this is a good time to start a business for women.”
Female-founded startups still only receive three per cent of the venture capital available globally. To help address that funding gap, Calgary-based The51, a bywomen-for-women financial platform, in September launched The51 Ventures Fund 1.
Its purpose is to raise women-led capital to invest in early-stage innovative women-led businesses in Canada and the United States. So far, about 90 per cent of the money raised for the $10-million fund is from women, and the fund is looking for investment opportunities in clean tech, agtech, enterprise and consumer digital platforms, fintech and health tech.
“We knew women entrepreneurs were having a hard time raising money. We also noticed women weren’t being invited to the table as investors,” said Shelley Kuipers, a serial tech entrepreneur and co-founder of The51. “We wanted to be part of the solution.”
The51 started in March 2019 — Kuipers and cofounders Judy Fairburn and Alice Reimer had been talking about the idea since 2018 — when a group of 75 women met in Kuipers’ kitchen and threw out an idea.
“What if we activated women’s capital for women entrepreneurs,” Kuipers recalled. “Where is the capital coming from? How is it being managed? Who are we investing in? We are trying to affect all three.”
Since that meeting, The51 community has grown to more than 9,100 investors, entrepreneurs and aspiring investors and entrepreneurs who identify as financial feminists.
“Financial feminism is really the thought that the last frontier of feminism is financial, when we have equality on all things financial,” Kuipers said.
From March 2019 to July 2020, The51 community invested $6.6 million across 19 companies founded by women. One of those investments is Sampler App Inc., a fast-growing Toronto-based digital product sampling platform that helps consumer brands distribute direct-tohome product samples to targeted consumers.
The pandemic led to a 300 per cent spike in sales in the second quarter of 2020 and the company plans to almost double its staff in the next year to 60 employees.
“We’ve had amazing partners from the get-go that have been supporting our growth, but even though we’re well supported, my male peers are raising more capital,” founder and chief executive Marie Chevrier said of the $10-million-plus Sampler has raised in equity financing since its start in 2013.
The51’s mission resonates with Chevrier.
“It’s not just about supporting great women entrepreneurs, it’s about making great women investors,” she said.
Kuipers believes the pandemic will accelerate the rise of women-led innovation and entrepreneurship.
“The current corporate environment doesn’t work for everyone,” she said. “While we are saddened by the dropout of women from the workforce, we think there is an opportunity in all of this. It’s for women as business leaders and closet entrepreneurs to come out and become entrepreneurs.”
Such activity is already happening in some places. For example, Alberta Women Entrepreneurs reports there are now 84 female entrepreneurs for every 100 male entrepreneurs in that province.
In addition to playing a role in closing the funding gap women entrepreneurs face, The51 is looking at a much bigger goal: reshaping the economy.
“We believe if we activate women-led capital and apply that perspective — the investors’ intellectual and human capital — they are going to look at these opportunities differently and invest in very different things that will perhaps be more beneficial to 51 per cent of the population,” Kuipers said. “By 2030, 65 per cent of all wealth will be controlled by women, so we better get involved in designing our economy now.”
In May, The51 partnered with Halifax-based Sandpiper Ventures, another women-led fund, to launch the Canada51 coalition. Its purpose is to influence national and provincial policy, and to share and communicate opportunities to invest in women-driven businesses.
“The opportunity is enormous. We’re just scratching the surface of women looking at themselves as active, purposeful investors and entrepreneurs,” Kuipers said. “If you’re thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, just do it. It’s our time.”
“Financial feminism is really the thought that the last frontier of feminism is financial, when we have equality on all things financial.”
Shelley Kuipers Co-founder, The51
“I think this is a good time to start a business for women.”
Jennifer Reynolds CEO, Toronto Finance International