From an in-depth analysis of open the box and Agoria at 300 growth companies in Belgium, it appears that female founders and directors are still rare in the sector, despite all efforts. Only 10% of the founders and a meager 13% of the directors are women.
Although the number of female employees at the start-ups and scale-ups studied rose slightly from 33% to 36% over the past 10 years, openthebox's Steve Deplacie notes that there is a lot of room for improvement.
Technology Federation Agoria strives to break the status quo by paying more attention to the composition of founding teams and actively encouraging investors to delegate female representatives to the boards of directors of their portfolio companies.
In response to International Girls in ICT Day openthebox and the sector federation Agoria delved into the company data of around 300 Belgian technology start-ups and scale-ups that participated in well-known acceleration programs such as imec.i start, Start It @KBC and Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 program.
The male-female relationships of founders, directors and employees were reviewed, with a focus on companies founded between 2011 and 2022.
The data shows that share of female founders there has been a slight increase in start-ups founded between 2017 and 2022 from 8 to 10 percent of the total number of founders compared to start-ups founded between 2011 and 2016.
“Despite the industry's efforts over the past two decades, there are still few female founders in start-ups. The same goes for female directors where the percentage has even fallen from 15% to 13%. The number of female employees remains almost stable, with around one in three employees. On all fronts, there is therefore still considerable room for improvement in terms of female representation. “, says Steve Deplacie, Managing Director of openthebox.
Of all the companies surveyed, 79% male founders only, while only 3% have female founders.
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There is also still a lot of room for becoming more diverse when it comes to directors: 71% of companies only have male directors, while 26% of companies have at least one female director in addition to a male director.
Additional research into around 70 start-ups with a female founder shows that 85% of these companies also have at least one male co-founder. These companies have a total of 83 female founders and 129 male founders.
“Female founders don't necessarily recruit more female employees. Women remain highly underrepresented with a share of around 30%. The boards of directors in this group of companies include around 32% female board members. ” says Laurence Jacobs, Women in Tech Ambassador at Agoria
The Sustainability Strategy 'Technology for a better world' van Agoria therefore sets clear goals with regard to gender relations within technology companies, such as striving to improve the gender ratio annually, achieving gender equality in recruitment and promotions, and having at least 25% women in leadership positions by 2030.
Breaking the status quo
Agoria also sees a positive role for accelerators and investment funds to break the status quo. On the one hand, they can take gender diversity into account when assisting start-ups that are looking for co-founders for their project.
“Various international studies show that companies with female founders and executives perform better in terms of efficiency, return on investment and corporate profits.” 'I was told that it was exceptional that I had ambitiously built a growth company with a male partner who was not my life partner. '
Laurence Jacobs of Agoria
“Various international studies show that companies with female founders and executives perform better in terms of efficiency, return on investment and corporate profits. They achieve better ESG scores and invest more in the training and development of their employees. It should just be common sense to focus on gender diversity. “, says Laurence Jacobs from Agoria.
On the other hand, both public and private investment funds can pay more attention to their composition when delegating representatives to boards of directors. Studies show that teams of people with different genders, multicultural backgrounds and ages make better decisions. Although the complementarity of profiles often comes first when compiling advisory boards, this seems to be much less common among boards of directors.
In addition, various testimonials show that the journey of female entrepreneurs is considerably more difficult and they are often confronted with stereotypes.
“Our first round of capital in 2020 was a success, but a long and difficult process. As a startup with three female founders, including two recent graduates, we had to convince a man's bastion of finance and investors. After discussions with other startups that also raised capital, it was clear that our process had required significantly more effort and perseverance. Something that is still evident today in the commercial expansion of our company. Potential customers sometimes question the credibility of our platform because they directly relate it to our team of young female founders. It is high time to change the mentality within the business community and to transcend the concept of “gender” - both within companies and in the sectors that finance and support them. Because in the economy of tomorrow, gender should not play a role. ' Sophie Vanderputten, co-founder and CEO HireRing.
Recently was Bien Vanderstappen, co-founder and CEO TEO, one of the finalists in a competition for female entrepreneurs.
“I was told that it was exceptional that I had ambitiously built a growth company with a male partner who was not my life partner. In addition, it was noted that, as a woman, active in a technical field with mainly customers in the industry, I was not an ideal role model and that women would find it difficult to identify with me. Such things are a bit of a shock, especially in 2023, where gender and background should really no longer play a role in valuing someone's work.”
'I was told that it was exceptional that I had ambitiously built a growth company with a male partner who was not my life partner. '
Bien Vanderstappen, co-founder and CEO TEO
