Frustrating Data Points

I'm making my way through the very informative whitepaper from Illuminate Ventures: High Performance Entrepreneurs: Women in High Tech.

In general, it's full of all sorts of positive information and trends in directions that should make people in favor of gender equality happy. The comparison of the Indian entrepreneur experience in Silicon Valley to the female entrepreneur experience is interesting, in particular.

However, the report acknowledges that the picture is as rosey as it is because it's focused in the U.S. Outside the U.S., the picture is very different. Including in the UK, which surprised me:


In the United Kingdom, for example, majority female-owned businesses pay significantly higher margins on loan terms than male-owned businesses (2.9 percentage points versus 1.9 percentage points)

And, one data point I found interesting, regardless of gender, was on the overhead associated with seeking venture capital versus debt:

Women who succeeded in gaining equity funding reported contacting 25 to 30 potential equity investors, roughly five times the level of contacts required for women to gain debt financing.

It's a good read, if you like this sort of thing.