Female Investors
Danae Ringelmann co-founded Indiegogo to democratize fundraising. Passionate about helping artists and entrepreneurs embrace crowdfunding, Danae speaks often at conferences. Recent speaking engagements include SXSW, MAD Hong Kong, TED, Big Omaha. Fast Company Magazine recently named Danae one of the Top 50 Most Influential Women in Technology.
Prior to Indiegogo, Danae was a Securities Analyst at Cowen & Co. where she covered entertainment companies including Pixar, Lionsgate, Disney, and Electronic Arts. Danae also focused on cable network, NFL, newspaper and hedge fund clientele while at JPMorgan's Investment Bank and Private Bank. In the wake of 9/11, Danae co-produced a concert reading of Incident at Vichy, an Arthur Miller play addressing the politically charged topic of racial profiling.
The NextWomen Africa Theme.
Saskia Reus-Makkink is Head of Investor Relations and Mentoring at VC4Africa.biz, the largest online platform for investors and entrepreneurs in Africa. Before joining VC4Africa Saskia worked for The Boston Consulting Group and Canon in various strategic and marketing roles. She set up her own company to support entrepreneurs in Africa and got involved in VC4Africa from the start. She is now also part of the Advisory Board for the Dutch government and NGOs with regard to doing business in developing countries.
We spoke to Saskia about her interest in African entrepreneurship; about the switch from a corporate career; and the success stories VC4Africa has helped to facilitate.
Research shows that both public and
private companies with female executives outperform companies with all male executives.
Yet women entrepreneurs receive a small portion of angel and venture
capital investment. Astia Angel aims to generate above-market returns by
investing in women-led, high-growth ventures.
"The fact that women entrepreneurs receive limited investment is both a
problem and an opportunity," remarked Amy Gips, Founding Managing Partner,
Astia Angel. "Astia Angel is uniquely positioned to help women
entrepreneurs succeed while targeting an attractive return."
Astia Angel, an angel investor network that includes both female and male angel
investors located globally, invests in women-led, high-growth ventures in
technology, life science and consumer industries. Astia Angel is a
strategic partner of Astia, a fourteen year-old organization dedicated to the
success of women-led, high-growth startups.
Canada's history of investment began as
early as 1907 when the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) invested
in Canada to help fuel economic growth.
Fast forward to 2012 – women entrepreneurs are now fuelling economic growth in Canada, the UK and the United States.
In Canada, the number of women owned businesses is growing 60 percent faster than those run by men. In the US, female owned businesses make up 16% of the total of US employment. It's predicted that women starting businesses in the US will generate approximately 33 % of 5.5 million new jobs by Bureau of Labour Statistics by 2018 according to The Guardian Life Research Institute report. In the UK, the number of women starting businesses increased by 16 % between 2008-2012 compared to 2% for men. (ONS statistics to April 2012).
The NextWomen Finance Theme.
Priyanka Gill is an angel investor, lifestyle blogger and journalist based in London.
The NextWomen Finance Theme.
Mary Strother is Managing Director of Investor Relations at Athenian Venture Partners, a tech-focused VC firm specialising in IT and healthcare.
Mary joined the Athenian team in 2007 to build and head up the firm's Investor Relations program. This includes IR, fundraising, and marketing and PR functions. She also participates in the deal flow, investment screening, and due diligence process of the firm.
Prior to Athenian, her professional career spanned over 17 years in finance, healthcare, and higher education. She has 14 years of financial sales and marketing experience and 16 years of institutional and high-net-worth-individual Investor Relations and fundraising experience in a Fortune 100 company and with a university foundation endowment.
One of The NextWomen contributors is one of the most vocal and visible female angel investors: Joanne Wilson. Her blog, the Gotham Gal, is a great read and we are happy to publish the interviews she conducts with female startups she meets in her daily life. Now it's her turn to be interviewed, here is an interview produced by Business Insider.
We are delighted to publish this exclusive interview with Dale Murray, Angel Investor of the Year 2011 and a panelist at our London Pitch event last week.
Most of us will spend our lives waiting for ‘the day’. We will work relentlessly towards ‘the day’, we are likely to spend our days dreaming about ‘the day’ and spending much of our time hoping and praying that ‘the day’ actually comes. Depending on who we are, our ambitions and our motivations, our ‘day’ could be the day we meet the love of our lives, the day we meet our hero, the day we win the lottery, secure investment, sell our business or perhaps just the day we meet a truly exceptional entrepreneur and investor who will change every other day of our career. In 2010 The Next Women interviewed Dale Murray, now it was my time for an exclusive update.
This morning I walked into a quiet coffee shop in Parsons Green to meet with Dale Murray, who I knew as the woman behind mobile phone top ups, angel investor of the year and the lady who had recently joined Doug Richard on a tour of the UK, raising awareness of the new SEIS scheme and helping people access finance. Although we had never met, I already knew that Dale was a giving and genuine woman. I already knew that she was a moving, engaging and inspirational speaker and knew that despite huge levels of success, she was humble, approachable and entirely down to earth.
I was keen to know what made Dale Murrays ‘day’ without realising that she would be making mine.
In a study performed by the Startup Genome
Project, it was found that only 1 in 12 businesses succeed. At Visual.ly a
fantastic infographic designed by Ernesto
Olivares illustrates five core areas in which startups and businesses
should achieve proper balance to ensure sustainability. (See http://visual.ly/why-startups-fail )
As capital is mentioned as one of the five critical areas, The NextWomen sat down with capital expert Pasha Baker (pictured left), Chairman and CEO of Life of a CEO Capital, a capital firm that offers lending solutions and venture capital to businesses.
Darshana Shah and Marcus Ubl founded the daily deal site –
LyncMeUp.com - in 2011 to bring quality products and services to consumers at
affordable prices and help SMEs promote themselves to larger audiences without
any upfront charges.
Although this model has already been capitalized by businesses like Groupon, Darshana and Marcus believe that the Daily Deal industry is fast becoming an essential part of a company’s marketing/promotional spend. LyncMeUp aims to be a quality provider of the daily deal service and will work in collaboration with other media and marketing channels to contribute to the eco-system of promotions.
LyncMeUp gets in sync with their consumers, before they link them up with the heavily discounted products or services. They say that they were probably the first daily deal site in the UK to send deals based on gender preference.
LyncMeUp is Darshana’s brainchild and I was keen to understand the road, which had led to her taking on one of the fastest growing and largest dotcom businesses of recent years.
Upcoming Events
27 Jun 2013 - 08:00 - 28 Jun 2013 - 17:00London, UK
Featured Female Hero
