With lower venture backing, fewer role models to look up to, social barriers to entry and more; it can seem discouraging for women entrepreneurs. However, plenty of women are leading the way, helping to helping to forge new paths and revolutionize industries.
Quartz worked with Pitchbook to highlight more than 200 women entrepreneurs they dubbed “rising stars.” Click through to read about the initiative and index, check out the criteria they used for the venture-backed founders, and discover hundreds of leading women entrepreneurs.
By David Yanofsky, Michael J. Coren and Simone Stolzoff
Silicon Valley is changing. Women are leading the way.
The last few years have seen more women than ever start companies and join the top echelon of venture capital firms. That includes people like Katrina Lake, who took her startup Stitch Fix to a $1.6 billion initial public offering in 2017. And investors like Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures, who is leading her own venture capital firm while championing other women rising up the ranks of Silicon Valley.
As part of How We’ll Win, Quartz worked with data from private-equity research firm Pitchbook to develop a unique dataset that identifies more than 200 rising stars among the venture-backed companies led by female founders in the US. To choose among thousands occupying one of the most dynamic segments of the US economy, the index weights company valuation, growth rate, and fundraising. None of those guarantee startup success, but the index offers a snapshot of a rising generation of female founders.
The index uses the following criteria for inclusion: startup valuations of $50 million or higher, or venture capital fundraising of $5 million or more, or a company valuation growth rate of 1-times or more over the previous fundraising round. Only startups founded during or after 2013 are included. All data were drawn from Pitchbook. (Data as of 7/27/2018)
Click through to the full Quartz article to see the index.
Image credit: AP and Reuters | Photo illustration by Quartz
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