For founders of early-stage companies out looking for some of their earliest startup funding, it's better to have a founding team with a combination of men and women rather than all of one or the other. And, it's even better if a mixed-gender team also has at least one minority founder.
That was the takeaway from a new report out Tuesday from DocSend Inc., which asked founders about their startups' gender and racial compositions as it delved into how they raised pre-seed funding rounds in 2021 and the first half of this year.
"Mixed-gender teams raised the most on average," the company, a subsidiary of Dropbox Inc., wrote in its report, adding that "the fact that they raised the most may suggest that (investors) have more confidence in teams that bring gender diversity to the table."
DocSend's report found that founding teams with both men and woman attracted the most funding, raising an average of $970,000. All-female founding teams raised an average of $800,000, while all-male founding teams raised an average of $770,000.
However, all-male teams spent significantly less time fundraising. All-male teams took an average of 34 meetings for their funding rounds, while all-female teams took 47 meetings and mixed-gender teams took 49 meetings.
These findings are somewhat mirrored in data collected for California-based startups:
- Mixed-gender founding teams raised an average of $900,000 and held an average of 37 meetings to secure their funding.
- All-male teams raised an average of $720,000, with 32 meetings being the average.
- All-female teams raised an average of $700,00 and took 35 funding meetings.
The survey also explored how a founding team's racial composition, along with its gender mix, affected funding. It found:
- Mixed-gender teams with at least one minority founder raised an average of $1.3 million in pre-seed funding. These teams took 71 meetings to raise a round.
- All-male teams with at least one minority founder raised an average of $1 million. In contrast, all-male teams with no minority founders raised an average of $850,000.
- All-female teams with minority founders raised an average of $860,000, while all-white, all-female teams raised $1.1 million. All-female teams with minority founders took 74 meetings to raise less money than all-white female teams, which took only 35 meetings.
The DocSend findings offer a different perspective to the question of how well female-led or gender-mixed startups do with fundraising. Last month, PitchBook Data found a drop in all rounds of funding for female-founded startups in the Bay Area in the first half of 2022 compared with the same period last year.
The San Francisco metro area — which includes Oakland and Fremont — is the No. 1 market in the nation when it comes to money going to female-funded startups. San Jose ranked No. 5 among specific metro areas, according to PitchBook. Read more about the PitchBook report here.
