Raising Capital for Women

I get asked why women can not raise capital and am frankly, flummoxed. In my experience, female run companies get capitalized. Recently, one of my female clients got $5M and appears on the front covers of business magazines as CEO of one of the fastest growing companies in Canada.
She had a good service and spent the time and money putting together a detailed five year financial model. That preparation when going out to raise capital makes the difference, not your gender.

I guess it is difficult to overcome stereotyping that by simply being female, you are not going to get money or that a female run company is not good for loan or investment repayment. Countries that are having gender roles change, such as Rwanda, are discovering that women are better at business than the men. The Washington Post explains the reasons why empowering women eliminates the cycle of poverty. It’s hard to imagine the lives Rwandan women for example, have lead, hard to relate to a circumstance where you have no rights, no standing, and no physical power to protect yourself. So why now, with just the slightest assistance, are these amazing women beating out their male counterparts in business? Easy - they’re women which seems sexist to say!

Here's an excerpt from the report: Officials at Vision Finance, the microloan arm of World Vision International that launched a program in 2005 in a Rwandian town of 40,000, said that while women make up the majority of borrowers, four out of five defaulters are men.
"They say that women care more about the family, but I do not know if that is true," Mukandayisenga said. "I think it has more to do with the self-control woman show in hard times.”