The Allyship
RESEARCH PROJECT
Did you know that:
Venture Capital is a major funder of Internet companies and projects - if we change the make-up of this important industry, will we see a difference in the amount of funding that women-led projects receive?
We know that companies with a female founder perform 63% better on average than all-male founding teams. Despite a greater potential to produce higher returns, women are historically underfunded, particularly women of colour.
- WOMEN IN VC REPORT, 2021
The issue is clear.
The percentage of women in Venture Capital firms are still vastly underrepresented.
The lack of women entering the field of venture capital is due to systemic barriers.
There is still a lack of momentum needed to shift these existing barriers for women to enter the venture capital world.
We aim to accelerate the current pace of social change and increase the number of women in Venture Capital to at least 30%.
Diversity isn’t just the right thing to do—it’s good for business.
There are significant opportunities to cultivate and promote the untapped potential for women.
Historically, the VC industry has consistently invested in founders, teams, and products that look like them. With that, huge market opportunities are left on the table, with millions of people who would be willing to spend money on the things they need remain largely overlooked and undiscovered. More diverse and more women-led funds mean that the likelihood of products and services targeting underserved markets receiving funding increases.
Our Approach:
Research
We have researched the North American Venture Capital industries and identified the barriers AND OPPORTUNITIES to increasing the number of women in VC.
Allies
We have compiled a committee of powerful women and advocates in the VC space to guide the project and educate the industry.
Speaking
We know that education is key to changing mindsets in the industry. Our committee members are available to share their experiences at conferences, workshops and University classrooms.
Allyship Committee
WE ARE ALLIES FOR WOMEN IN VENTURE CAPITAL
Neal Dempsey is the Managing General Partner of Bay Partners, one of the longest-running venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. Forbes has named Neal as one of the top 100 venture capitalists in the world. As a seasoned venture capitalist, Neal sees the value of diversity and the untapped potential for investing into women. He is dedicated to advocating, investing, and reinvigorating a new space for women in the investment community by utilizing his resources to connect luminaries and women in the industry.
Neal Dempsey
Katrina is one of Canada's leading women-entrepreneurs in technology and communications. Recently, Katrina received the prestigious International Women In Tech award, and she has dedicated her career to creating a more equitable space for women in technology. Katrina is passionate about bridging the gender gap in the investment community and is the guiding force behind this project.
Katrina German
Viveka Rydell-Anderson is an experienced healthcare innovator, executive, lawyer and change leader. Her experience includes start-ups, getting projects unstuck, operationalizing and scaling innovative ideas, hiring talent, funding, and business strategy. With purpose, she brings ideas to fruition, builds partnerships and teams, and attracts investors. An experienced board member, she thinks outside the box, sees opportunities in uncommon places, unveils common denominators across sectors and departments, builds trusting teams, and finds solutions to get past log-jams.
Viveka is the CEO of Pacific Vision Foundation in San Francisco, Advisor to DAYA Venture Studios, a Swedish FemTech Incubator, and President of Healthcare Informatics Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Northern California chapter. Viveka is a former Advisor to ACCESS Health International and OPEN, a national network advancing health equity. She is also the founder of two health startups, Mamsen Health and ImageChain.AI. Her experience also includes being the Director of Digital Healthcare Innovation at a tech startup.
Viveka holds a MS from Stanford Medical’s School, in Clinical Informatics Management (MCiM), a JD from University of California Berkeley School of Law, and a BA from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). She has lived in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States.
Viveka Rydell-Anderson
Michelle is passionate about working with amazing technology entrepreneurs applying disruptive technologies to solve problems in enterprise, health and consumer markets. Michelle is a skilled business professional with many years of combined operational and venture capital experience. Her background includes 16 years of venture capital investing in early- and later-stage companies in ICT and Health, managerial and product development experience as well as sales and marketing roles in both engineering and scientific industries.
Michelle co-founded StandUp Ventures in 2017, and leads investments in early-stage companies, health and technology companies. She is currently on the Board of Directors of several companies as a Board member or Observer and these include Sampler, tealbook, ODAIA, StoryTap, Emovi, MiMS & Acerta. She is also an investor in Figure1, Maple, Rank & Rubikloud who have raised substantial follow-on financings. Michelle holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from McMaster University and Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Ottawa.
Michelle McBane
Delilah Panio is Vice President of U.S. Capital Formation for Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) based in Southern California. In this role, Delilah advises U.S. companies on the opportunity to list and raise capital on Canada’s premier equity markets.
Previously, Delilah spent 10 years at TSX and TSXV in business development and strategy. She has advised many companies on the going public process and provides an understanding of private and public financing options in Canada and the U.S.
Delilah is also the founder of Fortuna Funding which provides practical and intentional guidance on accessing aligned capital, particularly for female founders. She is a frequent speaker and pitch competition judge and coach, and recently partnered with UBS and SheEO on Project Female Founder.
Delilah is currently Chair of the Funding Committee for Women Leaders of Octane and an Advisory Board Member for MAPLE Business Council (a trade organization between Canada and Southern California), WE Global (an innovation studio for women entrepreneurs), and The Allyship (driving change for women in venture capital). She is an Activator for Coralus (formerly SheEO) and led the 2016 US launch for this financing vehicle for female and non-binary founders. Delilah is also the Executive Director and Co-Founder of We Are Enough, a non-profit that educates women on why and how to invest in women-owned businesses and/or with a gender ens, which will be launching a global campaign next year.
Delilah holds an MBA in Enterprise Development and a BA in English and has completed a certification as a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner.
Delilah Panio
Joanne Fedeyko is the Founder & CEO at Connection Silicon Valley (CSV), an organization that helps accelerate Canadian startups from Seed to Scale, and the Founder of the Canadian Women's Network (CWN), a community that connects Canadian founders to an influential network of U.S. investors, mentors and executives to help them grow locally and scale globally.
She is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Women’s Equity Lab (WEL) Silicon Valley, an angel investment fund with the mission to increase the number of female investors in early-stage startups.
CSV is the Publisher of Disruption Magazine. With 80,000 subscribers, Disruption Magazine tells stories that would otherwise go untold. We profile disruptors in emerging industries and amplify voices that need to be heard.
Joanne is an Advisor to startups and a Founding Board Member of CELS (Canadian Entrepreneurs in Life Science) which provides accelerator programs for startups looking to expand and raise capital in the U.S..
Joanne hails from Alberta and has lived in Silicon Valley since 1999.
Joanne Fedeyko
Roxanne is the founder of Cap Inclusive which supports funds and ecosystem partners in their DEI transformation. Roxanne launched Cap Inclusive after working for 10 years in Innovation and publishing with HEC Montreal the first Canadian study around ways to close the gender gap in VC. She worked in venture capital as the Director of Operations at Panache Ventures where she led their DEI and operations strategy, helping raise a $100M Fund. Roxanne also sits on the Board of Director of Canadian Women in VC, a collective of over 300 women in venture, and on the DEI task force of Startup Montreal. She now helps innovative organizations become inclusion workplaces, working with organizations to transform their practices into value-driving levers for an innovative economy.
