Women should put in efforts to understand the process and need to demonstrate a willingness to have an investor on board. Serious investors are then more likely to see gender as a non-issue, and focus instead on the business and the ability of the entrepreneur
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| Anjana Vivek |
One topic that is being covered by media these days is the dearth of women in Board positions. Statistics show dismal numbers. If we look around attempting to identify women led/run businesses that have been funded by angel investors and VCs, we can see similar dismal numbers. Through this column, I am trying to set out some inspirational stories of women who have been successful in fund raising.
Leveraging on past performance
Aruna Schwarz, CEO, Stelae Technologies, has raised funds from 38 angel investors (Six are women). Aruna, herself a non-techie, founded a technology product company based out of France, and has investors across the globe, from UK, France, Switzerland, Israel, US and India. Eleven are from the Indian Angel Network. Aruna’s first investment round was from persons who knew her, including her earlier boss. She says “I tapped into my known resources. One should not hesitate to first explore such networks where there is trust on both sides. At the time of angel funding, the business was in the R&D stage, funding was on trust, more than on product and technology.”
Shoba Purushothaman is another successful woman entrepreneur, who has raised VC funding. She also emphasized the fact that it makes sense to tap known resources for initial funding and people who know you professionally over the years. Vijaya Verma, founder and CEO, Yos Technologies, got angel funding for her first venture, due to an introduction through a person who knew her at work. He was also highly respected in the field. Another woman entrepreneur met her angel investor as they were both members of a committee of a reputed organisation.
This is the common thread that we see across these four women, they all reached out to potential investors through their network. They leveraged on their professional expertise. Thus they did not allow gender to be an issue, by —
a) targeting their potential investors and b) leveraging on the reputation they had already built as committed professionals.
Demonstration of seriousness
Shoba Purushothaman is also associated with Golden Seeds angel network of the US. They are a group of primarily (but not exclusively) women angel investors based in the US that has historically only invested in US-based companies. She says, “I had organized a week-long trip for about 15 of them to visit Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and we met dozens of women-led companies seeking funding and also, we met a whole load of people in the investing eco-system. It was an eye-opener in every way!” She observed, “In many cases, giving up equity in the enterprise appears to be a concern.”
Shoba added that fund raising needs to be a full time focussed activity. Entrepreneurs need to be proactive and educate themselves. They need to understand the investor and the process of VC and angel investment.
Seema (name changed) said that women need to be persistent and not give up. She has seen many women hesitate to follow up. In her case, she was very serious and showed it with regular, periodic mails and telecons. She says, “There is a thin line between being pushy and persistent, you need to manage this.”
So, women should put in efforts to understand the process and need to demonstrate a willingness to have an investor on board. Serious investors are then more likely to see gender as a non-issue, and focus instead on the business and the ability of the entrepreneur.
In summary
Getting external funding is like clearing an entrance exam. Many persons try and only a small fraction succeed. Not getting funded does not mean the founders cannot create value. In fact, one very successful woman entrepreneur who raised several million dollars in funding, once told a class of women entrepreneurs that she had been rejected by over 20 investors initially. Her advice was that women should look at the reasons for rejection and then go back and try again, maybe with another investor!
So if you are a woman entrepreneur looking for funding, work hard, prepare for this and go ahead and try! Best of Luck! Do share your success story with us and others who may be inspired.
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Meet Anjana Vivek
Anjana Vivek is the founder of VentureBean Consulting and a guest faculty at IIM Bangalore.
To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia.co.in with the subject line 'Anjana Vivek'.The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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