Nurturing women’s success in the tech startup ecosystem
In Sub-saharan Africa, 26% of women are involved in entrepreneurial activity, making it the highest rate of female entrepreneurship globally. However, according to the United Nations, most female-led enterprises are low-growth small businesses and there aren’t enough high-growth tech startups in Africa led by women. Acknowledging the prevailing gender disparity within the tech ecosystem in Africa, we endeavored to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. Our aim was to explore ways to maintain gender balance and provide support to women participating in our programs to help them achieve sustained success in the later stages of their startup journeys.
To facilitate this understanding, we conducted interviews with founders and collaborated with peer organizations to evaluate our collective efforts, as well as those of other venture launchers, accelerators, and VCs, in attracting and retaining talented women throughout the entrepreneurial pipeline. In this brief, we share our findings, highlighting what has and hasn’t worked.
