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Recently on the blog, we wrote about the importance of getting funding in promoting women’s entrepreneurship. Yet, we also know that, especially in tech, funding is rarely equally split between men and women. A recent study by Dagens Industri showed that 93% of the founders of the 106 tech and internet-based companies who received venture capital funding in Sweden in 2015 were men. Only 7% were women. Even the government-run investment funds, like ALMI Invest, Vinnova and Industrifonden, have poor records in terms of gender equality. Only one of the twenty tech companies that ALMI Invest invested in in 2015 has a woman founder. This is despite the fact that women represent 19% of all ICT entrepreneurs, and men represent 81%. This is a major issue if we want a more diverse tech industry, as it makes it challenging for female founders to build successful companies if their access to external capital is lower than it is for their male counterparts.

Fewer female founders leads to fewer potential female investors, as most investors have successfully built and sold a startup before they started investing. There is also a risk that women who are thinking about starting their own startup are discouraged to do so by the lack of female founders having received financing for their startups. Anna Ottosson, CEO and co-founder of tech startup Greta, has successfully closed the company's first investment round from a number of experienced and well-known investors last year. In this text, also published here, she shares her insights and experiences in order to help others looking to raise money for their startup.