On Wednesday, we joined GC Angels in running the first ever Smashing Barriers event, focused on ‘Manchester’s Wonder Women’. Hosted by Natwest, in Manchester’s Spinningfields, the event set out to showcase women who have successfully raised money for their business and get them to share their tips and insight on how to do it.
The Entrepreneurship Gender Gap
There’s a big difference in funding between businesses founded and led by women and those founded and led by men. A piece published by The Entrepreneur last year highlighted that 98% of venture capital goes to men. In 2017, the largest VC deal for a female team was 18 times smaller than the largest VC deal for males.
It’s easy to focus on the negatives and get lost in statistics that show the gender imbalance in funding. The industry need to do better. What if it did?
Sharing Success Stories: The Wonder Women Panel
The Wonder Women panel
Jessica Jackon, GC Angel’s Investment Director and host for the evening, shared an amazing statistic on the night. If women entrepreneurs received backing on a level with men, the global economy could see a boost of $5 trillion.
With that in mind, GC Angels came to us with the idea of bringing Manchester’s fantastic tech and finance networks together to hear from amazing women entrepreneurs who have successfully raised money for their businesses.
Jenny Tooth, CEO of UK Business Angels, gave a really inspiring talk on the challenges women face in business and how they can overcome those obstacles.
After Jenny, the Wonder Women panel took the stage:
- Rachel & Laura Beattie, Founders of Careaux
- Chloe Barrett, Founder of Immersify Education
- Lucy Buckley & Kobi McCardle, Founders of Dr Fertility
The five entrepreneurs shared their tips on raising capital and scaling their business. Dr Fertility’s Lucy and Kobi spoke about their experience with Praetura Ventures, as we led in their £1m seed round in June 2019. Kobi, co-founder at Dr Fertility, said: “Praetura brought different level of expertise: tech, support, marketing. They even helped us find our finance director. They’ve given us a lot of time – they’ve been brilliant.“
Lucy Buckley and Kobi McCardle (Co-founders of Dr Fertility) with Pete Carway (Investment Director, Praetura Ventures)
The event was packed, with dozens of founders and enterpreneurs from across Manchester. We’d like to thank everybody who joined us on the night, and give a special thank you to Jess for making it all happen. We’re looking forward to running similar events over the next few months, so if you’d like to be involved, get in touch.
