Yahoo Finance Nine in 10 university spin-outs have no female directors
Nine in 10 start-ups founded on the back of university research have all-male boards, fuelling concern over the sector’s infamous “tech-bro” culture.
Figures from the Royal Academy of Engineering found that 92.3pc of spin-out companies have exclusively male directors, while 86.4pc have all-male founders. The figures, compiled by Beauhurst, showed that only 2.4pc of spin-outs have all female founders.
The data suggested this had worsened from last year, although the Royal Academy of Engineering said it was owing to “continuous improvements to data quality which have uncovered more unfavourable gender splits”.
None the less, Ana Avaliani from the academy said spinouts “clearly have a long way to go in building diversity within their companies”.
She added: “For the spinout sector to reach its full potential, a more inclusive culture is needed to maximise innovation from a diverse community of academic entrepreneurs.”
It follows years of attempts to improve diversity at start-ups, with the Government kicking off a Women in Innovation campaign in 2016 to “understand the challenges of being a female entrepreneur” and offer innovation grants in women-only competitions. Many people in the sector have been pushing for more diversity, which they say could help stop toxic cultures within start-ups.
Despite this, there have been concerns around the situation worsening during the pandemic – notably, figures from the British Business Bank in February 2021 showed that companies led by women received just over 1pc of all the funding under the Future Fund, the Covid start-up rescue scheme.
The Future Fund had signed up to the Investing in Women Code, a commitment to support “the advancement of female entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom”.
Last February, senior industry figures had warned that female founders were having to put their careers on hold to pick up more of household duties or care for family members.
Eileen Burbidge, a VC who backed Monzo, said last February: “More women than men have had to put their careers on pause over the last 12 months, so I think the pandemic has exacerbated challenges and gaps we have on diversity, even though ongoing remote working will serve to help a small bit longer term.”
