Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Earlier this year,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News reported on how female founders raised Paul just
Speaker 1: two percent of venture capital in the US last year.
Speaker 1: That was the smallest share since twenties sixteen. And it's
Speaker 1: really a sign that efforts to to really diversify the
Speaker 1: famously male dominated industry, I mean, continues to struggle. It's
Speaker 1: an old story, unfortunately, No, it's a frustrating one because
Speaker 1: there has been lots of efforts over the years financial
Speaker 1: services to change that narrative around and it just never
Speaker 1: seen to get that real tracks and particularly in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: All Right, So we have a great guest on this
Speaker 1: and working on that gap that could persists there between
Speaker 1: men and women, especially when it comes to raising BC money.
Speaker 1: Ruth Fox later, she is partner at Anthemus. It's a
Speaker 1: fintech venture capital firm. She's lived and worked around the globe.
Speaker 1: She joins us on the phone from San Francisco. Ruth,
Speaker 1: good to have you here with Paul and myself. How
Speaker 1: are you? And first of all, let's just get to
Speaker 1: the crux of this, why is it still so difficult
Speaker 1: for women to launch companies and access capital and get
Speaker 1: some help here? Yeah, I mean, I think and first
Speaker 1: of all, thank you so much for having me today.
Speaker 1: I think that it's a really simple answer in some
Speaker 1: ways to a somewhat complex question. The answer is really discrimination.
Speaker 1: And this is kind of systemic discrimination that women face
Speaker 1: and also kind of bilateral day to day discrimination. Um.
Speaker 1: I think where I'm really encouraged is that I have
Speaker 1: a portfolio which is full of outstanding female founders. I
Speaker 1: am a partner in the venture capital practice at Anthemous,
Speaker 1: so a little bit against all odds, myself and I
Speaker 1: have a lot of optimism, but you know also, um,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of work to do. And and Ruth,
Speaker 1: one of the things when I think about the venture
Speaker 1: capital firm, you know, you think of places like you know,
Speaker 1: Sandhill Road out in Silicon Valley. It's just it feels,
Speaker 1: it looks, it sounds very insular. Like if I can't
Speaker 1: raise my capital from some of those people out in
Speaker 1: the valley, and I know it's getting better with Austin's
Speaker 1: of the world and think think things like that, but boy,
Speaker 1: if I can't make it there, it's hard to make
Speaker 1: it anywhere in the VC world. Is that changing at all? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think it is, particularly for the sector that I
Speaker 1: look at, which is financial services. London and New York
Speaker 1: and Singapore and places you know, where the markets UM
Speaker 1: really are have always been quite vibrant venture capital scenes.
Speaker 1: I think that the diversification though that you're talking about
Speaker 1: of venture capital and where it lives, the geographic diversification
Speaker 1: certainly has a role to play in diversifying the founders
Speaker 1: that we invest in UM. There's a sort of sense
Speaker 1: that venture capital came from a small group of people
Speaker 1: who are looking to invest in people that look like them.
Speaker 1: For me, this is just completely counterintuitive. Venture capital is
Speaker 1: a game of exceptions. You're looking for exceptional companies that
Speaker 1: are going to beat a lot of odds and really
Speaker 1: kind of you know, strange stories, interesting founders. So how
Speaker 1: would you get those exceptional outcomes if you keep investing
Speaker 1: in people that you know look the same and have
Speaker 1: the same kind of pedigree. It doesn't really make any sense.
Speaker 1: You know. Somebody once said to me a few years
Speaker 1: ago that what you need is more women to create
Speaker 1: a Google or an Apple or so and so forth
Speaker 1: and then the money will come. Is that what it's about?
Speaker 1: Is it that simple or difficult? No, there really are
Speaker 1: some exceptional female founders that have raised an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of capital and and also run huge companies. So I
Speaker 1: don't think that we should. You know, it's quite exceptional
Speaker 1: for anyone to build a company at that scale, right, UM,
Speaker 1: I think we probably need more women in venture capital.
Speaker 1: This is something that I've been working on UH in
Speaker 1: a lot of different places, both at Anthemous and also
Speaker 1: UM in another organization that that I've been working on
Speaker 1: in Europe. UM. I think that female investors tend to
Speaker 1: back diverse founders, So I think this is one kind
Speaker 1: of simple band aid solution. But I think it's also
Speaker 1: generally just a sense that venture capital and great ideas
Speaker 1: can come from anywhere and can really stem from UM
Speaker 1: any background, any diverse background, and probably the more diverse,
Speaker 1: the more likely people are to have outsized impact. So
Speaker 1: Ruth I do a lot of work with DO universities,
Speaker 1: Graduate School of Business and in their venture capital fund,
Speaker 1: their private equity fund, their alternative investment funds. UH teams,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of women represented. What happens where do
Speaker 1: you tend to lose them. If you will, Where does
Speaker 1: it not translate, because again I see a lot of
Speaker 1: demand at the university level. Yeah, it's a tough question
Speaker 1: for me to answer because I really do UM invest
Speaker 1: in a much more diverse way than many of my peers. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, sometimes women will UM self
Speaker 1: select out. You know, this is something which has been
Speaker 1: studied and shown not only in venture capital but in
Speaker 1: in other fields. UM that there are certain demands or
Speaker 1: expectations of demands around building a startup UM where women
Speaker 1: feel like it's incompatible with other choices that they might make. Uh. Similarly,
Speaker 1: I've I've spoken with a lot of women on their
Speaker 1: path to partner and venture capital firms who say the
Speaker 1: same thing. You know, will this be compatible with having
Speaker 1: a family? I think it absolutely can be. I think
Speaker 1: we probably need some more support structures and and also
Speaker 1: kind of deeper understanding amongst the LP and GP world
Speaker 1: of what it takes and how we can create support
Speaker 1: for exceptional people to bring exceptional ideas to life. It's
Speaker 1: really never the founder alone who does that. So how
Speaker 1: do we help founders create teams which are more sustainable
Speaker 1: and allow them to achieve a lot of their different
Speaker 1: goals and objectives that could be um, you know one
Speaker 1: one answer. I think obviously there's also just a funding gap. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we certainly see it continue to play out. Ruth Fox
Speaker 1: later partner at Anthemus