Changing the Narrative

Shuyin Tang, co-founder and CEO of the Beacon Fund, a private debt fund that focuses on backing women-owned and women-led businesses, and Nicole Denholder, founder of Next Chapter Ventures, a funding ecosystem for female founders, speak about the different pathways to funding for female founders and redefining what it means to be a successful entrepreneur 

- Rachel Duffell

Nicole Denholder is on a mission to drive more money to women, both as founder of Next Chapter Ventures, which empowers female entrepreneurs to reach their potential and get funded faster, and as co-founder of Sophia, a learning platform delivering financial education to women.

Shuyin Tang, who has a background in impact investing, has felt a similar calling. “For a while I wasn’t aware of the challenges [faced by] female entrepreneurs. But the higher I rose, the [more those] barriers became clearer. How do we close the gender finance gap? How do we provide more pathways [to funding] for female entrepreneurs?”

When it comes to the gender finance gap—the difference between women’s and men’s access to financial services, resources and opportunities—a figure widely touted is that less than 3 per cent of funding goes to female entrepreneurs. It’s a figure that refers specifically to venture capital-backed (VC) funding.

“It’s definitely a huge problem,” says Tang. “But VC funding is actually for a very small proportion of companies. Is the goal only to get more VC funding to female entrepreneurs? That’s a very specific goal. I think the more interesting questions are: what types of businesses are out there, what type of funding do they need and how do we get them that funding?