Nesta supports Female Founders Office Hours to improve access to funding and support

Lisa Barclay, Investment Director
I am going to be participating in my third Female Founders Office Hours in a couple of weeks and wanted to share the concept. Playfair Capital and Tech Nation have done a tremendous job in pulling together dozens of VC investors over the past year and connecting hundreds of female founders to them. The main aim of the events are to address some systemic failures – a lack of funding and support for female founders in tech and barriers to accessing investors, particularly outside of London.
During Female Founders Office Hours, each founder is matched with 4 investors with whom they have 1-1 sessions to pitch their startup, ask for advice, or use in whichever way is going to be most helpful to them. As an investor, it is inspirational to meet each founder, hear their story and support them. In the UK, for every £1 of VC capital, less than 1p goes to all female founding teams and 10p goes to mixed gender founding teams.  These are woeful stats which need to change and all credit to Playfair Capital and Tech Nation for bringing together the industry to collaborate in driving change. You can read the blog introducing Nesta Impact Investments as well as some of the other VCs who will be taking part in the November Female Founders Office Hours. Look out for future events and if you are a female founder please do sign up on the Playfair Capital website.

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