Driving successful and responsible angel investing has been at the heart of EBAN’s identity since 1999, a mission we try to serve with every action. As a core value of our association, we promote diversity within the investment and entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The most recent pan European report indicates that in spite of ongoing efforts, the percentage of women1 in Europe within the angel investment asset class has been stagnant at about 10% over the last decade2. Despite the demonstrated higher success rate of women led startups3, these still represent around 1% of the overall capital invested4.
Supported by scientific research which shows the benefits of a more gender inclusive community5 and considering the fact that Gender Equality is one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals6, EBAN commits to triple the representation of women in our ecosystem by calling on the angel investment community to act in these three areas:
Increasing the number of women angel investors in Europe by 3x
We will work with Business Angel Networks across Europe to reach an average of 30% women network members by 2030. We will support, inspire, empower, and educate our networks and members for more inclusivity while also joining forces with existing initiatives to leverage the efforts within the larger community.
Increasing the number of investments in Female Entrepreneurs
We encourage individual angels and the entire early-stage investment community to pledge their support to build more gender-balanced, more resilient, and more innovative portfolios by investing at least 30% of their capital into female-led startups7 by 2030. Investing more in women entrepreneurs has the additional benefit of enabling the next generation of women business angels.
Increasing the number of Women on Boards
EBAN has a long history of female leadership and an above-average number of women holding board positions. We will continue on this path for our own organisation, empower our members in their commitment to increase inclusion, and inspire our community to increase gender diversity in the boards and strategic committees of their portfolio companies.
With this Manifesto, EBAN is taking the lead in creating a gender inclusive European early-stage investment and innovation ecosystem, thus making it stronger, healthier, more prosperous, more equitable, and more sustainable.
We invite organisations and individuals within our network and beyond to join this crucial endeavour: Sign this Manifesto here to show your support and pledge to make considerable changes within your own organisation and community to the benefit of us all. Organisations sign the manifesto on behalf of their network of investors and start-ups.
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1 At the moment there is only research concerning the participation of men and women in angel investing. However we recognise that gender equality goes beyond the binary and we would like to help advance, promote, and participate in research about N/B representation in angel investing in the future.
2.“EU Commission Study: Understanding the Nature and Impact of the business angels in Funding Research and Innovation”, EC (2017)
3. “Women entrepreneurs are our best opportunity”, Czerwinska, Pavlova and Vigliotti (2022)
4. “The European VC Female Founders Dashboard”, Pitchbook (2022)
5. “GENDER LENS INVESTING INITIATIVE”, GIIN (2022)
6. “Do you know all 17 SDGs?”, UN (2022)
7. Female-led startup: a startup where a woman has the lead as founder & CEO. The rest of the founding team can be mixed or one gender.