FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Maria Ibañez
202-588-8175
Ibanez@awis.org
AWIS Calls on Venture Capitalists, Investors to Expand Funding Opportunities to Women in STEM
WASHINGTON DC, September 18, 2018 – The leading organization advocating for women in STEM, the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), finds that women in STEM are still left out of the equation when it comes to investing and funding opportunities. Women’s businesses, despite being smaller on average and financed at a lower rate, achieve returns and revenue growth up to 3x higher than those created and led solely by men.
“Entrepreneurs who are marginalized represent missed opportunities to bring promising new technologies to the market,” said AWIS National President Susan Windham-Bannister. “We strongly encourage investors and funders to broaden their scope of interest and expand their investment portfolios to include highly capable entrepreneurs who are women, racially and ethnically diverse and often overlooked and excluded from access to capital.”
Through its STEM to Market (S2M) program funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, recent AWIS research identifies best practices for how entrepreneurship support organizations can incorporate inclusion into their outreach efforts and how investors can help fix the funding gap to help women in STEM achieve their full potential.
“It is the responsibility of every venture capitalist and investor to reach out to a wider network of entrepreneurs beyond the one they already have convenient access to. Our inherent trap of reaching out to networks one degree away can cause us to exclude opportunities that have a broader impact on society,” said Vas Bailey, Partner at ARTIS Ventures and AWIS STEM to Market (S2M) Advisory Board.
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About AWIS: Founded in 1971, AWIS has been the leading advocate for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to achieve business growth, social change, and innovation. We are dedicated to driving excellence in STEM by achieving equity and full participation of women in all disciplines and across all employment sectors. In addition to scholarships, AWIS provides career resources, professional development, as well as networking, mentoring, and volunteer opportunities to build leadership skills. To learn more, visit awis.org and @AWISNational.