Last year, venture capitalists pumped more than $1 billion across 138 deals in the Portland metro, however, startups founded by woman saw only a sliver of that money.
In 2021, startups with all women founders in the Portland metro received $30 million across 15 deals, according to the latest data from Seattle research firm Pitchbook. Those numbers bump a bit when startups that have both men and women founders are counted, to $163 million across 38 deals. That translates to 3% and 16.3% of the capital raised, respectively.
So far this year, through Oct. 31, $41 million across six deals have been invested in women founders in the Portland metro. Startups with men and women founders in the metro have secured $85 million across 20 deals.
For comparison, $614.8 million had been invested in the Portland area across 96 deals so far this year, according to the last Venture Monitor report from Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association.
Nationally, female-founded companies represented 25.5% of total VC deal counts so far this year, according to Pitchbook’s report All In: Female Founders in the U.S. VC Ecosystem. That is down from 2021 when it was 26.4%. The proportion of deal value is flat so far this year compared to last year at 17.2%, according to the report.
The massive gap in funding between men and women receiving venture capital investment has been talked about for years. Various funds targeting women founders or programs directed to getting more women into venture partner roles have also been ongoing, but major shifts in who gets funding remain to be seen.
Portland entrepreneur Nicole Schmidt has raised $5.2 million for her startup since 2017. She has developed a specific strategy around fundraising. She only pitches to firms that have a woman as a general partner or decision maker. Of the eight venture firms and family offices that have invested in her company, six had women as decision makers and a seventh has since added a woman.
“I pitched to over 110 other firms that had no women as general partners, generally if there was a woman associate, I'd make it farther into the discussion process, but almost never past the investment committee meeting,” she said. “So, overall, I've learned that for early-stage funding, I wouldn't waste my time and efforts pitching to funds or family offices without a woman who was truly a decision maker.”
She also researches funds to see how many other women they have backed.
Rock Paper Coin founders Nora Sheils and Elizabeth Sheils raised $2.3 million this year from investors. Two of its backers — Portland-based Elevate Capital and HearstLab — specifically invest in women.
As the sisters-in-law have built and pitched their startup they have kept a list of investors who have passed on deals — either because they weren’t the right stage for an investor or the timing was off for the fund — and the duo continue to email those firms quarterly updates so they can see the milestones and growth of the company.
In the case of Elevate, it was those emails and the metrics seen that finally lined up with the fund’s timing and available capital.
“We learned early on cold calling (investors) will get you nowhere,” said Nora. “If it’s a personal intro (investors) respond. We’ve seen that true from the early part through today.”
Elizabeth adds that for every “no” they hear they ask that investor for feedback as well as an intro to someone else who might be a better fit for investment.
Kaitlin Christine, founder of women’s health care startup Gabbi, also emphasizes research when fundraising. She recently closed a $4.4 million round.
Christine has three elements of advice for other founders: “Raising capital from VC's takes a ton of prep work beforehand, don't start pitching until you have done that work. Fundraising is a process — make sure you have set up a functional way to run process. Take control of the conversation — you should be putting them in the hot seat too. Come to the table with questions that you need answered and hold them to it.”
