In the Nordics we are proud of our high level of equality.
Our unique welfare and educational systems create the optimal playground for new innovation to evolve and solve big problems. Some of them we have already proven, with the high number of unicorns per capita. There has never been greater entrepreneurship activity in the Nordics as of today.
But are we making the most out of the situation? The key ingredient in creating and building groundbreaking innovations is the people. Research has again and again proven that diversity, particularly gender diversity, is directly linked to innovation as well as financial performance. This goes for startups as well as big corporates. In order for these new innovations to come to work, evolve and grow – capital is needed.
As this report demonstrates, not everyone is given access to that capital: of the 2bn euro of venture capital invested in 2018 in the Nordics, 88% went to all all-male founder teams, 11% to mixed gender teams and 1% to all-female founder teams.
The Data
In this report we are going to dig deep into these numbers.
We are going to show you amounts of capital, number of investment rounds, in a snapshot and over time. We are looking at the average deal sizes and proportions in investment ranges - all through the lens of gender diversity. This gives us a better understanding of what is happening, when it is happening and tell us something about the trends. To complement the data – we have reached out to various investors and ecosystem players to get their insights and reflections. This has resulted in over 30 insights and reflections that complement the data analysis.
We have incorporated a section from Diversity VCs 2018 female founders report to further complement the findings as well as Atomico's 2018 State of European Tech Report to enrich our findings on diversity and inclusion in startups.
Future looks bright
When you start reading and exploring the data, the numbers may seem not so optimistic, the purpose is to raise awareness, to start having a conversation. For you as an investor or policy maker – what this data represents is a huge business opportunity. It will require a lot of work for some investors, others are already full speed ahead, targeting underrepresented founders because they (we) see an incredible investment opportunity. Investing in startups and funding tomorrow's change makers is about finding that unique high performing 1% of people, why not source from the untapped pool.
We are already seeing the wave of female led unicorns in the US and we believe this wave will hit the Nordics as well. It will require pioneers and investors taking new and unconventional paths, but it will come.