Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Women are founding companies at a phenomenal rate with women-owned firms the rate of other small enterprises. About 43 percent of women leave the workforce after starting families and struggling for the and return to the workforce as entrepreneurs. Related: While a lot has been said and written about the growing body of female founders, there's an important tribe that's rising -- the women investors. The study by Babson College reported that a female entrepreneur is more than twice as likely to get funded if a woman is part of the investor decision-making team; but beyond that, women bring an entirely different perspective to the pitch evaluation of the founder -- male or female. Here are seven women investors, speaking in their own words, on how their approach and evaluation of a pitch is likely to differ from that of a male counterpart. Women focus on the details. Maxine Koven, co-managing director at LDR Ventures, finds women are less focused on the opportunity and more focused on the plan for taking advantage of the opportunity. Terri Mead, managing partner at Class Bravo Ventures, believes men simply don't pay enough attention when a woman is pitching. Male investors often struggle with relating to what a lot of female founders are pitching and may not make the effort to really understand the problem and the solution to see the opportunity. They also have plenty of investment opportunities with founders who pattern match to what they are comfortable with. I'm interested in building a strategic partnership with the founder, and I know right off the bat if it's going to be a good fit. Certainly, diligence will prove that true, but there is a certain amount of shared value that comes with my investment strategy. With men, I tend to see the 'partnership' happen down the road once a deal is signed, sealed and delivered, it's not something that is realized during the pitch process. Stacey Feinberg, founder of 33 Capital, believes women are more conservative about asking for funding and, as result, are perceived as less ambitious by male investors. Male investors are focused on the financials. Women are often afraid to ask for too much money. Men are more likely to say, 'I want a million dollars by Friday,' which is perceived as ambition and confidence. I tell my women founders to ask for confidently because investors don't want to see their founders spend time fundraising. Jennifer Sills, co-Founder at Parkbenchcap, said women founders are likelier to speak about the headwinds facing the business and male investors don't view that favorably. In a pitch meeting, while we, as female investors, interpret the discussion of the pros and cons as a practical market reality, a male investor interprets the balanced view as a lack of the founder's belief in their business. Shelly Kapoor Collins, founding partner at Shatterfund, said the lived experience of women investors gives them a different perspective. In order to understand how people use our site generally, and to create more valuable experiences for you, we may collect data about your use of this site both directly and through our partners. The table below describes in more detail the data being collected. By giving your consent below, you are agreeing to the use of that data. For more information on our data policies, please visit our.
