Northstar Ventures shares its statistics of investment into female led organisations.

The UK Government’s Women-Led High-Growth Enterprise Taskforce, which aims to increase the number of women-led high-growth businesses across the UK, released its report last week. The report includes statistics on the current rate of investment into female led startups and provides recommendations to investors on how to close the gender gap in relation to investment.

The Taskforce report highlights that just 18% of high-growth enterprises include one or more women on the founding team – while all-male founding teams make up 82% of high-growth enterprises; 13% of investment companies still do not have a single woman on their investing teams; and, for every £1 of equity investment in the UK, only 2p goes to fully-female founded businesses.

Northstar Ventures is very proud to be outperforming these industry averages. For example, as highlighted in part in its latest ESG and Impact Report, Northstar Ventures has 29% female representation on its investment team, 33% female representation on its Senior Leadership Team and, following the recent appointment of Judith Hartley, 29% female representation on its Board. Furthermore, with the North East Innovation Fund, Northstar Ventures has invested 21% of its capital into mixed gender leadership teams and more generally, the team has invested 15% (7x industry average) into female founded and female led businesses.

This includes Marie Labus, CEO of AMLo Biosciences, ‘As a female led technology company, we are proud to have been supported by Northstar Ventures from our first seed funding round in 2018, through to our current Series A round. Northstar Ventures continues to be ahead of the curve when it comes to supporting women-led businesses.’

Northstar Ventures board member Judith Hartley, who is also a member of the national Taskforce for Women-Led High-Growth Enterprise, said, ‘I am proud of the work of the Taskforce, and the report published last week, which raises awareness of the issues facing female founders and provides recommendations on what can be done to help address these issues. I am also very pleased that Northstar Ventures is already outperforming the industry average with regard to its investment into female founded businesses and also its own team and board composition.’

If you would like to read more of Northstar Ventures ESG and Impact Report 2023, it can be found here.