Hundreds of startups go public every year. Only 20 have ever been founded and led by women.

  • Date: 05-Jan-2021
  • Source: Business Insider
  • Sector:Technology
  • Country:Middle East
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Hundreds of startups go public every year. Only 20 have ever been founded and led by women.

Katrina Lake is the founder and chief executive of Stitch Fix. She is one of just 20 women who have led a startup through to an initial public offering.









Katrina Lake/Facebook















Each year since the New York Stock Exchange was founded, in 1817, hundreds of companies have gone public. Only 20 have been founded and led to an IPO by women.

There are many reasons women and minorities have been held back. Among them: Fewer than 13% of all VC decision-makers are women, and less than 3% of all VC dollars flow to companies led only by women.

To achieve gender equality, women need to found and join the next Fortune 500s to shape a diverse corporate culture from the beginning and accumulate generational wealth for themselves.

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2020 was a record year for initial public offerings in the US, with 442 logged as of December 14. Yet only five of those were companies founded and led by women, according to research by Business Insider and information provided by Nasdaq. 

Historically, only 20 women have ever founded and