Female tech pros urging more women to enter the field

Women are not CLEVELAND — fairly represented in the tech world. And that’s a problem

for women, of course, and — for men, too.

If investors shut down women’s ideas, you miss out on what could become your favorite phone app or a product to make your life easier. If venture capitalists don’t include women in decision making, you lose the perspective of half the market.

“The percentage of women-founded venture-backed companies globally has plateaued at approximately 17 percent since 2012,” according to TechCrunch.com. Women CEOs received about 3 percent of venture capital invested between 2011 and 2013, according to one study. That’s $1.5 billion of a $50.8 billion pot.

Women are breaking into tech fields, though, and Cleveland tech accelerator JumpStart brought three female tech leaders from outside the state to the 2018 Startup Scaleup on June 26 in the Gordon Square Arts District.

Startup Scaleup is an allday festival celebrating the growth of Northeast Ohio’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and showcasing local resources available to help entrepreneurs. Startup Scaleup’s 39 different workshops, panels and networking events occurred in 13 eateries, theaters and creative spaces.

“Silicon Valley and certainly venture capital has been a boys’ club, and in a lot of ways that has left really talented women on the sidelines,” said Startup Scaleup featured speaker Monique Woodard, a San Francisco venture capitalist.

There are plenty of women with good ideas, said Gerri Kahnweiler, founding partner of the Chicago venture capital firm InvestHER, which focuses on investing in companies with at least one female owner.

She said she’s talked to more than 1,000 female entrepreneurs and invested in 13 ventures.

“We kept hearing before we started the fund there isn’t a pipeline, there just aren’t enough women out there who are creating businesses,” Kahnweiler said. “And we have proven that so wrong.”