Change the World 2023
Australia’s startup ecosystem is plagued by the same problem as its peers around the globe: The vast majority of venture capital investments go to male founders. In 2022, founding teams with at least one woman participated in just 23% of the country’s 712 deals and received only 10% of the nearly $5 billion doled out, according to the State of Australian Startup Funding report by Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures. Unlike their peers, Australian VCs decided earlier this year to hold themselves accountable for closing the gap by following new, voluntary reporting standards. Initially, 12 firms committed to publicly disclose data on how many female-led businesses they screened, vetted, and ultimately funded. Now, nearly 50 firms have signed on. The drivers of the campaign—Scale Investors co-CEO Samar McHeileh, Alberts investment manager Lisa Fedorenko, and Giant Leap partner Rachel Yang—say their goal is to enlist at least 100 Australian firms. They hope later on to set targets for the industry countrywide. “You can’t improve what you can’t measure,” Fedorenko says.
