
By Lisa Calhoun
In several global studies, the United States leads the world in high-performance entrepreneurship. Female founders in particular contribute some of the most eye-popping stats around growth in revenue, growth in employment, financial efficiency, and entrepreneurial spirit. See how many of these facts you know already and how many surprise you:
Facts about female founders and starting companies
- Women start companies at 1.5 times the average rate in the United States.
- The absolute number of startups in Crunchbase with at least one female founder has more than quadrupled in the last five years, from 117 in 2009 to 555 in 2014.
- Women entrepreneurs in the United States rank their happiness at nearly three times that of women who are not entrepreneurs or established business owners.
- The US ranks No. 1 among 31 countries considered by Dell on the support of women’s entrepreneurship.
- Today, 18 percent of all startups have at least one female founder.
- There are just over 9 million women-owned companies in the United States.
Facts about hotbeds of women and entrepreneurship
- Brooklyn, New York, banks more female startups than any other single city in the US.
- Las Vegas has the honor of the highest percentage of venture-backed companies with at least one female founder: 26 percent.
- The cities with the shrimpiest numbers of female founders, by percentage, are Silicon Valley’s Palo Alto and San Jose, California.
- Texas claims the worst record of supporting women seeking venture capital. In 2014, 42 Texas startups got Series A rounds. Zero of these had female founders.
- In the United States, the frontiers of fast growth in the raw number of companies founded by women are, in order: North Dakota, Wyoming, the District of Columbia, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada.
- The cities in the US where the combined economic clout of female founders is growing fastest are San Antonio, Texas; Portland, Oregon; Houston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; and Riverside, California.
- Dell puts Australia in the top spot as a nursery for potential women entrepreneur leaders. Over half of Australian women who start businesses are college-educated, which provides them with networks and experiences that they can leverage for growth.
Facts about women entrepreneurs and job creation
- A net new 340,000 jobs were added by woman-owned businesses between 2007 and 2015. At the same time, men-owned businesses shed 1.2 million jobs, according to a 2015 study by Womenable and American Express.
Facts about female founders and raising capital
- No matter which crowdfunding platform they choose, female founders perform equally well or better than their male counterparts when raising money online.
- Offline, it’s a different story. Only 10 percent of startups which raised Series A in 2014 had female founders. Today’s venture capital environment clocks some 305 active funds over $100 million. These funds collectively put $114 billion to work. 90% of it never sees a female founder.
- That said, venture capital firms with women partners are more than twice as likely to invest in companies with a woman on the executive team.
- Venture firms with a woman partner are more than three times as likely to invest in companies with women CEOs.
- 94% of decision makers at venture capital funds are male.
- Even so, there is more venture for women, and the women’s entrepreneurial ecosystemis gaining traction, as angel investor Kelly Hoey points out in Inc.
Facts on performance and women entrepreneurs
- Among the most successful companies, men start their businesses with six times as much capital as women do, according to the most recent National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) Annual Report.
- One analysis by Quantopian hedge-fund researcher Karen Rubin showed that women CEOs outperform peers three to one in the S&P 500, further developing the conversation over women driving top financial returns.
- Businesses with a woman on the executive team are more likely to have significantly higher valuations at Series A—as in 64% higher.
- Businesses with a woman on the executive team are more likely to have significantly higher valuations in their last funding round—49% higher.
- 46% of the privately held companies in the US are now at least half-owned by women.
- Financially, women entrepreneurs outperform everyone but blue chips over time. In the last couple decades, the growth in the number of women’s businesses (up 68%), employment (up 11%), and revenues (up 72%) blows past the growth rates of all but the largest publicly-traded businesses, and tops growth rates among all other privately-held businesses over this period.
- Female-founded or co-founded “unicorn” companies—those with a billion or more in valuation—include Theranos, Eventbrite, SunRun, and Houzz.
- The list of richest women entrepreneurs in the US includes Diane Hendricks, owner and chairman of ABC Supply, a wholesale distributor of roofing, window, and siding materials in Beloit, Wisconsin; Forever 21’s Jin Sook Chang, worth $3.05 billion; Eren Ozmen, chair of Sierra Nevada, the biggest female-owned federal contractor in the US; Pleasant Rowland, creator of American Girl dolls; and Martine Rothblatt, who founded and runs biotech company United Therapeutics.
What women entrepreneurs say they need
- Almost half-of female founders (48%) cite a lack of available mentors or advisers as holding them back.
- Only a third say lack of capital is a constraint.
This article originally appeared at Inc.com