founding teams. It also showed that, of the total amount of funding raised by companies in its sample, only 1.3% went to ethnic minority founding teams, prompting the publication to comment “fostering diversity can help to align profit and purpose. But discrimination remains across Europe.” Investing inWomen Founders has been a topic Diversity UK has championed for some years via the Asians in Tech list and Tech Showcases. During the Diversity Tech Summit in July 2022, Deepali Nangia, partner at seed investor Speed Invest stated women are, “over-mentored and undercapitalised”. Nangia and Saloni Bhojwani, Co-Founder of Pink Salt Ventures, explained that women founders tend to be questioned far more about risk and downside than male counterparts. This materially affects funding. WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN THEWORKPLACE The pandemic unduly impacted women’s participation in the workplace. Progress has been set back to 2017 levels. As illustrated in the Gender Matters 2022 brochure, women still bear a disproportionate burden of childcare andmany were in unreliable jobs, like those with zero-hour contracts, at the start of the pandemic. TheRoseReview 2022 update suggests ‘despite the rapid growth in female led start-ups, female entrepreneurs have spent twice as long on caring responsibilities during the pandemic as their male counterparts, and their businesses have been less likely to recover.’ There is a glimmer of hope. The report cites data showing ‘more women than ever are starting new businesses, with 145,200 all-female-led incorporations in 2021, up from 56,200 in 2018.These incorporations comprised 20%of the total in 2021, up from 16% in 2018.’ The growth has been supported by new initiatives. In total, 134 institutions with an investing power of nearly £1 trillion have signed up to the Investing in Women Code. The code is a commitment by financial services firms to improving female entrepreneurs’ access to tools, resources, and finance. Then there is the launch of a nationwide Women Backing Women campaign from the Women Angel Investment Taskforce to support women to become business angels, and thereby ensure that female founders across the UK have a better chance to access early-stage investment. The UK has also seen a number of new women-led VC firms; more female partners being employed at established VC funds and a considerable level of funds being raised – some of which will be invested in female-led funds. So, the willingness to invest in womenled ventures and the funding is there, but the problemof nurturing and supporting women to create businesses persists. Incubation Nation estimates 81 programmes have definitely closed in the last five years, potentially it could be as many as 164. This, combined with a change in focus to support established firms, further reduces access into entrepreneurship at a time when the UK economy needs to foster greater entrepreneurship and economic participation at grassroots level. SKILLING AND RESKILLING THE WORKFORCE Ultimately, start-up founders play a part in overcoming challenges by investing in their business; fundraising for growth; seeking newmarkets; developing new products and services; and employing more people. There are nearly five million people working in UK tech start-ups and scaleups, with regions across the UK enjoying strong hiring growth for tech. Tech job opportunities have hit a 10year high with the explosion in demand for products and services over the past two years, according to data by smarter job search engine Adzuna. The research reveals tech roles nowmake up 14%of all UK job opportunities. There were around 870,000 tech and digital vacancies available between January and May 2022, the highest number recorded since Adzuna began collecting data in May 2012. Many of these start-up businesses could go on to scale, and several could be the future unicorns Britain so desperately needs. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 13 Lopa Patel is a digital entrepreneur and the Chair of equality charity Diversity UK, a partner organisation on the Gender Matters 2022 project, with the Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership at Lancaster University Management School and the Work Foundation. Diversity UK is an equality charity that aims to research, advocate and promote ideas for improving diversity and inclusion in Britain. It is an evidence-based initiative that seeks to influence policy, enhance civic engagement, and improve the perception of the minority ethnic community in Britain. Diversity UK aims to advance the education of the public in diversity and inclusion in the workplace, in particular by carrying out research for the public benefit in all aspects of that subject and to publish the useful results.
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