Women founders attract higher levels of follow-on investment than men

8 Mar 2017

From left: Glissed co-founder Louise Dunne, NDRC CEO Ben Hurley, Glissed co-founder Niamh McHugh and Bank of Ireland chief innovation officer Dave Tighe at NDRC Investor Day 2016. Image: Shane O’Neill

NDRC proves that women founders attract higher levels of follow-on investment than men.

To coincide with International Women’s Day, NDRC has revealed research that shows start-up teams with women founders attract more investment.

Released in the form of an infographic, the accelerator showed that between 2009 and 2015, the number of NDRC companies that had women in the founding team grew slowly from 15pc to 29pc.

However, this surged to 63pc in 2016, when the NDRC began a Female Founders programme in partnership with Enterprise Ireland and Bank of Ireland.

NDRC vows to keep women founders momentum

The research showed that 67pc of companies with women in the founding team went on to receive follow-on investment.

This is in juxtaposition with 51pc of all-male founding teams.

In December, more than 20 companies pitched at NDRC Investor Day, with the winning investments of €30,000 and €20,000 going to Vizlegal and Glissed respectively.

NDRC is recognised internationally for its approach to enabling the very best early-stage tech ventures and has been consistently listed among Europe’s top accelerators.

In 2015, it was ranked the number two university business accelerator in the world.

NDRC said that it intends to keep this momentum for accelerating high-potential businesses with women on the founding team long into the future.

NDRC proves women attract higher levels of follow-on investment than men

Infographic: NDRC

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com