Women Angel Investors: a movement that has taken off

In 2004, when Golden Seeds started, only 5% of angel investors were women, according to the Center of Venture Research at the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire.

"Stephanie Newby had the idea that we needed to start a movement to raise capital to fund the founders," said Loretta McCarthy, Co-CEO and Managing Partner of Golden Seeds. Newby founded Golden Seeds. "It [women funding women] has become a movement in many ways." Since then, many others have been inspired to create angel investor groups focused on funding female founders.

The percentage of female Angels increased to 33.6% in 2021.

According to two reports from the Angel Capital Association, it is important to have a growing number of female angel investors.

Female investors are much more likely to consider the gender of founders they consider investing in startups. More than half (51%) of women believe the gender of founders is very important, compared to 6% of male investors, according to The American Angel. While female investors are more likely to admit they consider gender, the reality is that men do too, but in much more subtle ways. This can be seen in the type of questions that male investors ask of female founders compared to male founders. Women are asked about mitigating risk, while men are asked about harnessing growth. Over the past 15 years, the number of angel-backed companies with female CEOs has quadrupled, from 5% in 2015 to 21% in 2018, according to the ACA's 2019 Angel Investor Report.

Jo Ann Corkran and Loretta McCarthy co-CEOs and managing partners of Golden Seeds, and group of angels ... [+] and venture capital firm that invests in startups founded by women< /p> Golden Seeds

Most angel investor groups are local. But 10 years ago Golden Seeds decided to go national and now has eight chapters. “Our mission is to fund high-quality female founders, not female founders from our neighborhood,” said Jo Ann Corkran, Co-CEO and Managing Partner of Golden Seeds.

"We're not just waiting for things to go through the back board," Corkran said. Members of each chapter proactively engage with incubators, accelerators, college entrepreneurship programs, and business plan competitions. Golden Seeds holds office hours once a month, providing feedback to fema...