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Funding

female-powered

businesses

Making the UK the best place in the world to be a female entrepreneur

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Funding

female-powered

businesses

Making the UK the best place in the world to be a female entrepreneur

The Invest in Women Taskforce has been created to make the UK the best place in the world to be a female entrepreneur. If women were to start and scale businesses at the same rate as men, that would mean a potential £250bn boost to the UK economy.*

The problem

Currently, there’s a structural under-representation of female investors and female founders:

 

  • Just 11% of VC committee members being women**

  • Only 1.8% of equity capital going to female-founded businesses***


The Invest in Women Taskforce is determined to address the disparity, drive sustainable change and support women at all stages of business growth.

Our mission

Our mission is to create one of the world’s largest investment pots of £250m, with capital deployed by female investors to accelerate investment into female-powered businesses across the UK.

By bringing together experts from across the public and private sector, we have the expertise, resources and ambition to drive sustainable and systemic change.

We need to break down the barriers to opportunity and provide more women with the access to the capital they need to thrive, creating a better performing economy with improved growth and better productivity.

*The Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, 2023.**BVCA,2023. ***Beauhurst, 2024.

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“Women leading businesses shouldn’t face funding challenges to build and grow their business because of their gender... I know first-hand the importance of breaking down barriers and making meaningful change for female-powered businesses.”


Debbie Wosskow OBE

“Female founders have always struggled to access their equal share of investment – but it is about time we stopped looking at the ‘why’ and started driving action to ensure this history changes.”


Hannah Bernard OBE

The Invest in Women Taskforce is ‘industry-led and government-backed’, co-chaired by multi-exit entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow and Head of Barclays’ Business Bank, Hannah Bernard.

Focus on funding

The Invest in Women Taskforce has been created to bridge the funding gap and to support women at every stage of their business, from start-up to scale-up. We are:

  • Creating one of the world’s largest funding pots for female-powered businesses

  • Boosting the number of female angel investors

  • Improving funding options for smaller businesses

 

The members of the Taskforce are passionate about solving these challenges and bring a wealth of experience from different fields from Entrepreneurs, Financial Services and Government representatives.

Drive systemic change

As part of the Taskforce, we’ve created a separate Ecosystem Working Group to help women start and grow businesses. We are on a mission to:

  • Increase the number of women entrepreneurs

  • Make it easier for them to succeed

Our Ecosystem Working Group includes diverse and dynamic professionals from Education experts, Think Tanks, Financial Services and Government representatives, all working together to create a more inclusive and supportive environment for female founders to thrive.

Founders: We’re working to unlock private investment and to create opportunities that help entrepreneurs like you to grow your business.

Investors: For too long, innovative female-powered businesses have been held back due to a lack of funding – let’s change that together.

Register your interest below to receive regular updates on the progress of the Taskforce and how you can get involved.

Join our LinkedIn Community – if you haven’t already, please give us a follow.


Alternatively, if you are seeking more information about what support, tools, accelerators, networks and finance options are available for female founders, please check out the Invest in Women Hub.

Learn more

Relationship

The Invest in Women Taskforce exceeded initial target of £250m in capital raise for female founders

The Invest in Women Taskforce surpasses initial target of £250m in capital raise for female entrepreneurs

The Invest in Women Taskforce has secured over £250m of funding to support female entrepreneurs in the UK. Major investors, including Barclays, M&G, the British Business Bank, Morgan Stanley,  Visa Foundation, BGF and Aviva have stated their commitment to invest in female founded businesses across the country, either directly themselves or through the ‘Women backing Women’ fund. A process has been initiated to select a fund manager(s) to deploy the ‘Women backing Women’ fund capital.


This milestone exceeds the Taskforce’s initial ambitious goal of creating one of the world’s largest investment pools of £250m for female-led and mixed businesses. Backed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in its mission to unlock future economic growth: if women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men, it would deliver a potential £250 billion boost to the UK economy. 

An event hosted at Mansion House announced the initial Taskforce investment pool and the fund manager selection process for the ‘Women backing Women’ fund, ahead of which the Chancellor said:

“We all, including myself as the first female Chancellor, have a responsibility to make the economy work better for women. Initiatives like the Invest in Women Taskforce funding pool are a fantastic example of the public and private sectors working together to help unlock the potential of female founders and seize opportunities to fire up the government’s number one mission of economic growth.”

The Invest in Women Taskforce investment pool will be deployed via female investment decision-makers across the UK, recognising that female investors are twice as likely to invest in female-led and mixed businesses, breaking down the systemic barriers faced by women entrepreneurs and investors alike. 


The announcement follows data from the Taskforce revealing that all-female founded businesses received just 1.8% (£145m) of the total value of equity investment in the first half of 2024, a fall from 2.5% in 2023. 


Debbie Wosskow, multi-exit entrepreneur and Co-Chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce, said: 
“Female entrepreneurs and investors have been sidelined for too long – they are two sides of the same coin. It’s time we rebooted the system and gave female investors the power to drive change, and funds like the ‘Women backing Women’ fund is how we do it. I’m thrilled that investors from both the public and private sector have joined us and recognise the enormous opportunity here, but this is only the beginning, we need more investors to come aboard and join us on this journey.” 


Hannah Bernard, Head of Business Banking at Barclays and Co-Chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce, added: 
"Our funding partners not only recognise the moral imperative to drive systemic change for female investors and founders, they recognise that this also makes strong commercial sense. Studies show that female-led businesses generate 35%  higher returns than male-led businesses. The ‘Invest in Women’ funding pool is about changing the landscape of investment. I’m incredibly excited about what’s to come.”

 

Request for Proposals

As part of this historic announcement, the Invest in Women Taskforce is calling for proposals from fund managers to manage the 'Women backing Women' Fund. 

If you are a fund manager who can demonstrably meet the objectives of the Fund, we encourage you to submit your proposal.

All proposals will be assessed using the evaluation criteria set out in the Request for Proposal (RFP) document.

Please send your proposals and any questions that you wish to clarify before submitting a response to IWT at Investinwomentaskforce@barclays.com with subject line ‘’RFP Response: WbW Fund manager selection”

Deadline for queries: 06 December 2024 at 17:00
Deadline for proposals: 23 December 2024 at 15:00

Download the RFP document and the Diversity Questionnaire.

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