We invest in Canadian, women-led and gender diverse businesses solving pressing social problems.
Guided by combined expertise of the women leaders who have invested in our funds we identify, evaluate, and make pre-seed and seed investments in early stage ventures that create meaningful change for people and the planet—while delivering strong financial returns.
At the same time we’re attracting more women to angel investing and improving our financial savvy. We’re also building networks with like-minded funds and accelerators across Canada to source deal flow and resources for our funded ventures.
Ventures funded
General Partners
Camille Saltman
Carollynn Shafer, LLB
Sherri Faloon
News
- BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP
Why Women-Owned Startups Are a Better Bet, June 6, 2018
In terms of how effectively companies turn a dollar of investment into a dollar of revenue, startups founded and cofounded by women are significantly better financial investments. For every dollar of funding, these startups generated 78 cents, while male-founded startups generated less than half that—just 31 cents.
- Diversity wins is the third report in a McKinsey series investigating the business case for diversity…These findings emerge from our largest data set so far, encompassing 15 countries and more than 1,000 large companies…The most diverse companies are now more likely than ever to outperform less diverse peers on profitability.Our 2019 analysis finds that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile…Moreover, we found that the greater the representation, the higher the likelihood of outperformance. Companies with more than 30 percent women executives were more likely to outperform companies where this percentage ranged from 10 to 30, and in turn these companies were more likely to outperform those with even fewer women executives, or none at all. A substantial differential likelihood of outperformance—48 percent—separates the most from the least gender-diverse companies.
- MarketWatch, October 2020: research keeps popping up that says female fund managers outperform males. A study published by Goldman Sachs found that 48% of female-managed funds outperformed from the market low in March through August, compared with 37% for all-male funds. Funds managed by females also held up better in the Covid-19 market meltdown that hit bottom in March. During the trailing 12 months, female-managed hedge funds have outperformed, reports Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research. Women hedge fund managers delivered nearly double the performance of men from January 2000 through May 2009, a period bookended by the dot-com meltdown and financial crisis, says a study by Hedge Fund Research. The same study found female-managed funds held up much better in 2008, falling 9.6% compared with 19% for male-run funds.
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- Women received a record amount of U.S. startup venture capital in 2019, according to recent figures. But while female founders securing 2.8 percent of total startup investment in the United States may be lauded as a historic achievement, it’s not something we should be complacent about. A 2020 Crunchbase report shows that even if we combined VC investment in female-founded and mixed co-founded companies in 2019, it still amounts to only 9 percent of all investment. Considering women represent over 40 percent of all entrepreneurs in the country, and plenty of statistics showing that women significantly outperform men in business, a lot more needs to be done. Read article >