Gender Equality in Australian VC

45% of new Australian VC investments completed by Artesian over the last 12 months have a female co-founder. However, little progress has been made in attracting female startup investors to the ecosystem, with less than 5% of active seed and angel investors being women.

Updated: Oct 9, 2019

45% (31/69) of new Australian VC investments completed by Artesian over last 12 months have a female co-founder. However, little progress has been made in attracting female startup investors to the ecosystem: 5% of active seed/angel investors are women https://www.afr.com/technology/vc-funds-fail-to-get-women-on-partner-track-20191002-p52ww7?btis

From feedback we have received there are a multitude of reasons for this material gender gap - it is clearly a systemic problem that needs to be addressed with multiple initiatives

Four key reasons for the gap include:

Amount of earnings/savings - the average super balance for males is around $153,000 while for females it is around $102,000
Less female role models in VC/tech and networks of investors dominated by men.
Other investments take priority - angel/VC not the most interesting
Education - Financial literacy within Australia is above OECD average - but, within the OECD, Australia has one of the largest gender gaps in financial literacy.