Equity lens founder’s guide : a guide for women founders in Asia and the Pacific on navigating gender bias in the fundraising process

This guide aims to support and empower women startup founders in the Asia-Pacific region to navigate inherent gender biases during three stages of the fundraising process: (1) preparing for investment, (2) identifying investors, and (3) pitching for investment.

In Asia and the Pacific, the gender gap in access to venture capital (VC) is significant. In 2021, only 1.8% of VC funding went to women-only startup founding teams, while 89.5% of VC funding went to startups with only men on the founding team and 8.6% to startups with mixed-gender founding teams. This disparity is largely due to gender bias in investors’ organisational policies and practices. Building on the extensive experience of Value for Women and ESCAP in this sphere, it is clear that systemic change requires “changing the institution, not the women.” However, we know that changing the institutions and systems takes more time and in the meantime, women founders face a significant gender finance gap in raising capital for their businesses.

This guide highlights the gender biases that women founders currently face and provides insights and recommendations for how to navigate and work around them. This Guide is here to help women startup founders counter the conscious and unconscious biases present throughout the fundraising process and unlock the capital they deserve, while the broader systemic changes continue.