The plain numbers about women in tech – The VCs

I’m not much for the “women in tech” stuff — preferring to prove equality rather than beg for it — but sometimes the gender imbalance in this industry is so damaging that it would be unethical for me to not call it out.

About a year ago, I wrote a blog post titled The Plain Numbers About Women in Tech, presenting the raw data to prove that the highest profile startups employ very few women, and moreover that the vast majority of women who do work for startups are in roles that involve selling the product, not making it.

Some people shared in my dismay. Some people offered up the names of startups that have a more gender-balanced staff. Some people simply defended the places they work saying, “We’ve tried!” or “Does it really matter?”

A year has passed, and in a future post I’ll go back through those companies and check to see if their ratios have changed. But there’s something deeper here that I’d like to explore first.

On Twitter the other day, I saw some investor friends congratulate a fellow VC on being promoted at his firm. I clicked through to the firm’s website and navigated over to their team page. I immediately noticed something — all men. So I checked out some other hotshot VC firms off the top of my head — all men, almost all of them. I’d always suspected it I guess, but here they all were staring back at me.

As a user experience strategist, I have spent the entirety of my career devising ways to get companies to better understand the needs of their target audiences. Building a culture of empathy within the business is my most fundamental goal, and the greatest obstacle I face is convincing upper management that their customers are nothing like them, that they have to think outside of themselves in order to succeed.

So here’s my question: if all-male venture capital firms are investing in all-male startups, where is the female influence coming from? Who is guiding these companies on when and how to target women? With women making 85% of purchasing decisions and far surpassing men in their Internet usage, doesn’t it seem wrong that hardly any women are involved in controlling which companies create our future?

I thought it was time to take an empirical look at the gender ratio of some popular venture capital firms by looking at their team pages, as I previously did with the startups. I limited my research to firms that have a focus in early-stage funding, have funded > 5 brand name startups, and have funds worth > $100 million. Again, this is by no means a comprehensive study, but this is what I found.

Take a look for yourself…and let me know what you see.

NOTE: I excluded female staff NOT in investment positions (e.g., accounting, legal, biz dev, operations, admin) from the counts below. Yes, I did this all by hand.

High Profile Early-Stage Venture Capital Firms

Accel Partners

Founded Year: 1983
Team Page: http://www.accel.com/people/index.php
Women Investors: 4/40
Fund Size: ~$6 Billion [source]
Portfolio: comScore, 99 Designs, Birchbox, Diapers.com, Etsy, Kayak, Trulia, Groupon, LearnVest
Location: Palo Alto, CA; New York, NY; London, UK; Beijing, China; Shanghai, China; Bangalore, India; New Delhi, India

Andreessen Horowitz

Founded Year: 2009
Team Page: http://a16z.com
Women Investors: 0/6
Fund Size: $1.5 Billion [source]
Portfolio: Airbnb, Fab, Facebook, Groupon, Pinterest, Zynga, Skype
Location: Menlo Park, CA

August Capital

Founded Year: 1995
Team Page: http://www.augustcap.com/team/
Women Investors: 0/8
Fund Size: ~$1.3 Billion [source]
Portfolio: Six Apart, Aardvark, Evite, RelayRides, Blippy, Visio, Livemocha
Location: Menlo Park, CA

Bain Capital Ventures

Founded Year: 1984
Team Page: http://www.baincapitalventures.com/your-team/
Women Investors: 1/31
Fund Size: ~$1.5 Billion [source]
Portfolio: Blip.tv, Jott Networks, Lala, Rent The Runway, Color
Location: Boston, MA; New York, NY; Palo Alto, CA

Benchmark Capital

Founded Year: 1995
Team Page: http://www.benchmark.com/people/#
Women Investors: 0/9
Fund Size: ~$3 Billion [source]
Portfolio: 1-800-Flowers, eBags, Dropbox, Zipcar, Instagram, Twitter
Location: Menlo Park, CA; Herzliya, Israel

Bessemer Venture Partners

Founded Year: 1911
Team Page: http://www.bvp.com/Team/
Women Investors: 1/39
Fund Size: ~$2 Billion [source]
Portfolio: Pinterest, Shopify, Knewton, Twilio, Diapers.com, Soap.com, LinkedIn
Location: Menlo Park, CA; Larchmont, NY; Cambridge, MA; Herzliya, Israel; Mumbai, India

Charles River Ventures

Founded Year: 1970
Team Page: http://www.crv.com/team
Women Investors: 0/10
Fund Size: ~$2.1 Billion [source]
Portfolio: Yammer, HubSpot, Scribd, Wanderfly, Zendesk, Geni, Twitter
Location: Cambridge, MA; Menlo Park, CA

DFJ Gotham

Founded Year: 2000
Team Page: http://dfjgotham.com/team.html
Women Investors: 0/5
Fund Size: ~$6 Billion [source]
Portfolio: ADstruc, Drop.io, Medialets, Mimeo, Solvate, Totsy, Yipit
Location: New York, NY

First Round Capital

Founded Year: 2005
Team Page: http://www.firstround.com/team/
Women Investors: 0/6
Fund Size: ~$126 Million [source]
Portfolio: Fab, Get Satisfaction, GroupMe, ModCloth, Path, Taskrabbit
Location: San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA

Foundry Group

Founded Year: 2010
Team Page: http://www.foundrygroup.com/team/
Women Investors: 0/4
Fund Size: ~$225 Million [source]
Portfolio: Fitbit, CrowdTap, Makerbot Industries, Gist, Cheezburger, Zynga, Medialets
Location: Boulder, CO

General Catalyst Partners

Founded Year: 2000
Team Page: http://www.generalcatalyst.com/team
Women Investors: 1/19 (early-stage)
Fund Size: ~$500 Million [source]
Portfolio: Airbnb, GroupMe, Hunch, Kayak, Rue La La, Chloe + Isabel, Upromise
Location: Cambridge, MA; Palo Alto, CA

Google Ventures

Founded Year: 2009
Team Page: http://www.googleventures.com/team
Women Investors: 2/13
Fund Size: ~$200 Million (annually) [source]
Portfolio: HomeAway, Nest, Read It Later, 23AndMe, Signpost, ThinkNear, RelayRides
Location: Mountain View, CA; Cambridge, MA; Seattle, WA; New York, NY

Greycroft Partners

Founded Year: 2006
Team Page: http://www.greycroftpartners.com/team/
Women Investors: 2/6
Fund Size: ~$200 Million [source]
Portfolio: Buddy Media, Klout, Pulse, Joyent, Crowd Fusion, The Huffington Post, Babble
Location: New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA

Greylock Partners

Founded Year: 1965
Team Page: http://greylock.com/teams
Women Investors: 1/16
Fund Size: ~$2 Billion [source]
Portfolio: Airbnb, Constant Contact, Coupons.com, Facebook, Groupon, Pandora
Location: Menlo Park, CA; Cambridge, MA; London, UK; Beijing, China; Bangalore, India

Highland Capital Partners

Founded Year: 1988
Team Page: http://www.hcp.com/highland_team
Women Investors: 2/27
Fund Size: ~$3 Billion [source]
Portfolio: CafeMom, Gemvara, Digg, Pixable, Rent The Runway, Paper.li, Yipit
Location: Cambridge, MA; Menlo Park, CA; Geneva, Switzerland, London, UK; Shanghai, China

Khosla Ventures

Founded Year: 2004
Team Page: http://www.khoslaventures.com/khosla/people.html
Women Investors: 0/8
Fund Size: ~$1.05 Billion [source]
Portfolio: HowAboutWe, RockMelt, Xobni, Square, AppNexus, ZocDoc
Location: Menlo Park, CA

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Founded Year: 1972
Team Page: http://kpcb.com/teams
Women Investors: 10/44
Fund Size: ~$900 Million (early-stage) [source]
Portfolio: Blue Nile, Zaarly, Flipboard, Groupon, Klout, Spotify, Path, Square, Nest
Location: Menlo Park, NY; Beijing, China; Shanghai, China

Matrix Partners

Founded Year: 1977
Team Page: http://www.matrixpartners.com/site/team_landing/
Women Investors: 0/9
Fund Size: ~$1.25 Billion [source]
Portfolio: Gilt Groupe, HubSpot, Care.com, Airvana, Apple (once upon a time)
Location: Palo Alto, CA; Cambridge, MA; New York, NY; Mumbai, India; Beijing, China; Shanghai, China

Polaris Venture Partners

Founded Year: 1996
Team Page: http://www.polarisventures.com/WhoWeAre/OurTeam.asp
Women Investors: 2/18
Fund Size: ~$3.5 Billion [source]
Portfolio: Automattic, Confluence, Formspring, JibJab, Turntable,
Location: Waltham, MA; Cambridge, MA; Palo Alto, CA; New York, NY; Dublin, Ireland

Rho Ventures

Founded Year: 1981
Team Page: http://www.rhoventures.com/team-overview.htm
Women Investors: 1/15
Fund Size: ~$510 Million [source]
Portfolio: Bluefly, GetGlue, OMGPOP, iVillage, Tapjoy, TACODA, Everyday Health
Location: New York, NY; Palo Alto, CA; Montreal, Canada

RRE Ventures

Founded Year: 1994
Team Page: http://www.rre.com/#team
Women Investors: 0/8
Fund Size: ~$137 Million [source]
Portfolio: Betaworks, Bit.ly, HowAboutWe, Yipit, Xobni, Kik, GetGlue, Solvate
Location: New York, NY

Sequoia Capital

Founded Year: 1972
Team Page: http://www.sequoiacap.com/us/early ”
Women Investors: 10*/62 (early-stage) *all women are in the India and China locations
Fund Size: ~$1.3 Billion [source]
Portfolio: Airbnb, Funny or Die, Kayak, LinkedIn, Square, Eventbrite, Dropbox
Location: Menlo Park, CA; Herzliya, Israel; Beijing, China; Shanghai, China; Hong Kong, China; Bangalore, India; Mumbai, India; New Delhi, India

Spark Capital

Founded Year: 2005
Team Page: http://www.sparkcapital.com/team
Women Investors: 0/7
Fund Size: ~$720 Million [source]
Startups Funded: Twitter, Tumblr, Svpply, Runkeeper, Foursquare, Boxee
Location: Boston, MA

True Ventures

Founded Year: 2006
Team Page: http://www.trueventures.com/team/
Women Investors: 0/5
Fund Size: ~$378 Million [source]
Portfolio: 20×200, Automattic, Fitbit, Assistly, GoodReads, Plancast, About.me, Typekit
Location: Palo Alto, CA; San Francisco, CA; Falls, VA

Union Square Ventures

Founded Year: 2003
Team Page: http://www.usv.com/team/
Women Investors: 1/6
Fund Size: ~$450 Million [source]
Portfolio: Etsy, Boxee, Foursquare, Kickstarter, Meetup, Zynga
Location: New York, NY

Targeted to Women

A few female-led venture firms have cropped up with the mission to finance female-led startups, but they’re all managing funds well under $100 Million and are generally recognized as angel investors:

Golden Seeds

Founded Year: 2004
Team Page: http://www.goldenseeds.com/Funds/our_team
Women Investors: 6/8
Fund Size: ~$26.5 Million [source]
Portfolio: AboutOne, Carnegie Speech, DRY Soda, Fashion Playtes, LARK, Little Passports, Lovesac, Honestly Now
Location: New York, NY

Women’s Venture Capital Fund

Founded Year: 2010
Team Page: http://www.womensvcfund.com/about/team/
Women Investors: 3/3
Fund Size: Unknown
Portfolio: Ivy Corp
Location: Palo Alto, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Portland, OR

BELLE Capital

Founded Year: 2010
Team Page: http://www.bellevc.com/belle-angel-investor-team.html
Women Investors: 10/11
Fund Size: Unknown
Portfolio: Current Motor Company, Michelle’s Miracle
Location: Detroit, MI

JumpThru

Founded Year: 2011
Team Page: http://jumpthru.net/team/
Women Investors: 1/1
Fund Size: N/A
Portfolio: N/A
Location: New York, NY

Joanne Wilson

More info: O’Reilly Radar, The Next Web
Fund Size: N/A
Portfolio: Curbed (Eater/Racked), Food52, Red Stamp, Rick’s Picks, Hot Bread Kitchen, Gotham Gym, The Moon Group, Catchafire, Loverly, Daily Worth and MOUSE
Location: New York, NY

Bucking the trend

VC firms that aren’t specifically targeting female-run startups, but who have a predominance of female investors:

StarVest Partners

Founded Year: 1998
Team Page: http://www.starvestpartners.com/team/investment-team/
Women Investors: 5/6
Fund Size: ~$400 Million [source]
Portfolio: iCrossing, Insurance.com, ideeli, Bluestreak, Host Analytics
Location: New York, NY

DBL Investors

Founded Year: 2008
Team Page: http://www.dblinvestors.com/team.php
Women Investors: 5/8
Fund Size: ~$140 Million [source]
Portfolio: Tesla Motors, Pandora, Livescribe, Ecologic
Location: San Francisco, CA

Am I missing something?

So what do these numbers tell you? Have I forgotten about a VC firm with predominantly female investors? Am I unaware of some firms for-women-by-women?

Please set the record straight! Or share your thoughts on why we’re seeing this unsettling trend, and what we can do to make it right.