Female graduates get jobs in venture capital, but not the best ones
It's no secret that venture capital is a male dominated space. A recent report from VC firm Ada Ventures on women in UK VC has reinforced this. Just 17.7% of people with significant ownership of management companies are women. However, when it comes to entry level jobs in venture capital, women are the majority.
Source: Ada Ventures
The graduate venture capital jobs women are getting aren't the best ones. - They're not in the 'investment roles' allocating the funds but in the non-investments roles, supporting the investors.
Men, on the other hand, dominate in investment roles above the most junior levels and are increasingly dominant the more senior you go.
It's mixed-leadership funds where women seem to stand the most chance of success. There, women are the majority in investment roles from junior to senior level, and have the highest proportion of women in leadership roles, ~35%.
Source: Ada Ventures
Seniority doesn't always denote appropriate pay, however. In a panel discussing the results, Monik Pham, founding partner of VC firm Pact said, after leaving a previous fund, she discovered that "junior male members got carry for funds I’d raised." She was the "only female member on the team."
This may be changing, though. Check Warner, founding partner at Ada, says "it's an apprenticeship business, we know it will take time."
This is especially true in the UK, where the study was focused. "The US were more open to the idea of women-led funds," Pham says. "The UK market is probably less well versed when it comes to venture capital full stop."
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