Our mission is to close the gender investment gap

In New Zealand, startups founded by women are shut out of all but
7 in every 100 investment opportunities.
And that 7 is mostly white women.

Nearly all investment capital in early-stage startups goes to a narrow group of founders who all look the same, come from the same schools and universities, and are taught the same way of solving problems.

The % of venture capital deals, split by gender of founder team:

Aotearoa: Gender Investment Gap (Jenny Rudd + Theresa Gattung)

Australia: Australian Startup Funding (Tractor Ventures released this report on Australia’s gender funding gap in Nov 24)

USA: PitchBook

Europe: PitchBook

Download the GIGNZ report as a PDF here

Why does it matter?

We are missing out on funding startups being built by the 93 percent of the world who aren’t white and male. Intelligence is evenly distributed at birth. Opportunity to exercise it is not.

How did we get here?

Investors choose people who look like them. We all do it. Look at your own friendship group, do they mostly look like you? Same skin colour, gender, age, background?

With 95 percent of venture capital dollars being controlled by men, it makes sense that it flows straight into startups led by those who look the same as the people who choose who gets the capital.