Dr Hayaatun Sillem

We are cleantech investors, and every day we hear well-meaning colleagues say things like “I’d love to invest in more women-run companies, but, well…. I just don’t see any!” In 2018, the London SustFiveThirteenable Development Commission authored a report to better understand why women-run businesses receive disproportionately less funding. In 2020, only 20% of all VC funding went to mixed-gender teams, and less than 2% to ones with all-women. Why is this? The report, and others like it, identify many complex factors, including lack of women with science & engineering backgrounds, lack of confidence, sexist behaviour - and access to finance. We’ve chosen to tackle the last one. We think that by shining a light on some great women-founded businesses, we can show that actually, there ARE some out there (not enough, but not none), and take aim at some of the barriers to them getting finance - like network bias, encouragement and recognition.