Women are more successful than men in meeting crowdfunding goals
WHEN it comes to raising funds from large groups of anonymous donors over the Internet, women come out tops. That could be a boon for job creation and economic growth.
A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and The Crowdfunding Center shows that women across the world consistently outperformed men on funding campaigns: Globally, females were 32% more successful than males in reaching their funding targets; in Asia, women achieved twice as much success as men.
Crowdfunding Web sites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter have become popular platforms for entrepreneurs looking to raise money for projects ranging from watches powered by body heat to publishing comic books. In 2016, more than $767 million was raised through nine of the biggest global platforms, compared to just $10 million in 2009, according to The Crowdfunding Center.
Crowdfunding helps to level the playing field for women, according to the study. Unlike traditional sources of finance in male-dominated industries such as venture capital and banking, women may not face the same level of gender discrimination.
“There is definitely bias, we see that all the time,” Shinjini Kumar, head of consumer banking in India at Citigroup, Inc., said in the report. “It comes from language in females’ pitches more appealing than the business language commonly adopted by men, according to the study, which analyzed more than 450,000 seed crowdfunding campaigns.
With a funding gap estimated at $300 billion for female-owned small businesses worldwide, access to finance for women entrepreneurs still has a long way to go. Supporting women-led ventures would not only deliver higher returns for investors but also help to boost economic growth and job creation, according to the study.
Women were more successful crowdfunding across industries, raising on average more money than men did in most sectors aside from enterprise, retail and consumer goods.
Men still raised the lion’s share of financing though, mainly because more of them use crowdfunding platforms and set bigger targets. Of the 63 campaigns that raised more than $1 million in the past two years, only 11% were led by women, according to the study. —