WinVC, the female investor-led initiative aimed at attracting more women to VC investment positions, launches on Tuesday, October 18, with a discussion on the state of capital for women in Australia.
funder Andrea Gardiner, CEO & Founder of Jelix Ventures; Ingrid Maes, founder & director of W23; and Michelle Deaker, founding partner & MD of OneVentures will talk about WinVC’s purpose, ambitions and WinVC membership offerings at its launch at Google’s Sydney headquarters on October 18 at 5:30 PM.
Female investors are welcome to attend in person or virtually. Register with be part of this.
Gardiner said their ambition is to bring women in VC together to learn from each other, develop new opportunities, facilitate collaboration and help foster female talent in the industry.
“We are here to support existing female investor talent and encourage more women in VC investments,” she said.
“We are deeply inspired by women across the industry who, just like us, are driven to make a difference and have a real impact. We can’t wait to see what we can do together to achieve!”
The evening will consist of two panel discussions, followed by networking, with Google Australia MD Melanie Silva gives the opening speech.
In the second panel, Cath Rogers, partner at Antler, Lisa Fedorenko, investment manager at Albert Impact Ventures, and Tanisha Banaszczyk, director at Folklore Ventures, talk about their corporate journeys.
Ingrid Maes said that dDiversity in venture capital leads to better decision-making and fund performance, making the success of the entire industry and the startups these VCs invest in.
“Despite the rapid growth of venture capital firms, there are too few women making investment decisions in venture capital and despite: strong evidence that women-led companies outperform others, is investment in women-led startups stay behind,” she said.
“According to a recent report by Deloitte and SBE entitled Accelerating Female Founders: The untapped investment opportunity, only 0.7% of all private start-up funding in FY22 went exclusively to female founders, despite funding increasing tenfold between FY18 and FY22.”
Michelle Deaker said WinVC exists to reduce the gender bias in VC that underpins this lack of funding for female founders.
“It will do this by supporting female investors and providing a safe space for networking, mentoring, education and inspiration,” she said.
“It will also work to attract more women to venture capital investments both, with a driving ambition to fight the industry’s gender bias.”
All women who cannot attend but are interested in WinVC membership can contact: Hello[at]innovationbay.com.