The reality is that very little is known about women tech entrepreneurs – you can see the state of scholarship on the issue in this literature review by our partner organization NCWIT.
This week, researchers David Hart, Zoltan Acs, and Spencer Tracy of the Corporate Research Board released a report for the Small Business Administration. The report focuses on US high-tech entrepreneurship and the origins of founders. Their report focuses on “high-impact high-tech” companies, defined by those companies that are 1) defined as focusing on high-tech, including 43 industries, and “high-impact” as defined by growth – a firm with sales that have at least doubled over the last 4 years and which shows employment growth. From this nationally-representative dataset of 1,240 companies, they find that:
- 22.1% of high-impact high-tech companies have at least one female founder, while 77.9% have all-male founding teams
- 6% of founders are minorities – 2% Hispanic, 1.6% African-American, 1% Asian, and 1% Native American
- 12.8% of founders were foreign-born
- Those foreign-born founders were also more likely to have an advanced degrre than native US founders – twice as more likely to have a doctoral degree.
- Male foreign-born founders are more likely to team up with women and minority co-founder(s) than are native founders
- 67% of foreign-born founders have done their graduate education in the US
This month, Alicia Robb and Susan Coleman for the Kauffman Foundation also released a report on women tech entrepreneurs, where they note that less than 5% of venture capital investments in the US go to women-owned firm, and women entrepreneurs are more likely to use internal funding sources than male entrepreneurs.
To hear women tech entrepreneurs in their own words, listen to the NCWIT Heroes podcasts interviews. Hearing the success stories and lessons learned of these trailblazers is truly inspiring.
July 27th, 2009 at 4:13 am
Congraturations for the wanderfull job you are doing.
Its very inspiring to read your achievements. Iam in the field of IT and all i have meet is that i cant break through because its a men dominating field. With Africa it was harder but with persistence i have made it. Iam running an IT company offering technical support, internet provision and training.
Your site has encouraged me most because i have found people who think the way i thought. I have joined UWEAL( Uganda women enterprenuers simply to train women in ICT which is a field that keeps them backward.
With E-commerce and E-business women have to come up in information technology if we are to continue in business.
Iam currently planning to go for masters in COMPUTER SECURITY.
CHEERS AND GOGOOGO. ON