"We women don't lack ideas, we lack resources," says Katrina Walker (38), founder and CEO of the startup CodeOp, a coding school aimed at women, trans and non-binary people. "Our company is one of the few to have been founded by a woman and receive the backing of venture capital," says the data scientist, who currently has the support of twenty-three business angels -investors who finance startups- and has raised about 2.4 million euros.
Despite the fact that she was “a computer nerd growing up”, Katrina Walker didn't approach the world of technology until after she had finished a university degree in social sciences. “I was not encouraged to pursue a STEM (careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) career, which is a very common story for young girls,” she laments.
Born and raised in San Francisco (USA), she settled in Barcelona in 2016 to do a Master's in Data Science. After a daunting stint in the corporate world, she decided to blaze her own trail. “It was a very masculinized environment, we were only two women on the team. My entire experience was riddled with sexism, what is called bro culture. Like many other women in the tech industry, that led me to want to create my own company”, explains the CEO. Today CodeOp has close to 1,200 students and is present in seventy countries.
Like many other women who have taken up business around the world, Katrina Walker has found that the startup ecosystem is still a long way from parity. In Spain, only 6% of the founding teams of start-ups are made up only of women, compared to 35% of mixed teams and 59% of only men, according to the South Summit Entrepreneurship Map 2022.
In Catalonia, the second territory of the European Union with the greatest presence of women in founding teams of startups, those with a female presence do not exceed 20%, according to data from ACCIÓ, the public agency for the competitiveness of Catalan companies, of the Department of Business and Labor of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Nor are many in leadership positions. According to the McKinsey study Women Matter Spain: Pending Tranches, in Spain only six out of 100 CEOs are women.
In addition to being a minority, companies founded or led by women also receive less funding. Last year, they only got 0.9% of the total capital invested in venture capital firms in Europe, according to PitchBook. “Despite the multitude of data highlighting the benefits of investing in female founders, women-founded companies remain underfunded. In 2010, only 3% of the dollars invested went to female founders and in 2019, almost 10 years later, that number remained the same”, indicates a Crunchbase report.
"It's not easy to raise a round of private investment," says Marina Rigau (39), CEO and co-founder, along with Eva Colás and Antonio Gil, of MiMARK Diagnostics, a startup dedicated to developing in vitro tests that are less invasive and more effective than conventional ones. available for the diagnosis of endometrial cancer. His company has raised 2.4 million euros in public funding since its incorporation, and is about to close a new round of investment.
The doctor in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Biomedicine, who was awarded at the Women Startup Awards 2022, explains that "until now, women have been a minority in the venture capital environment, which may have led to not investing as much for projects like ours, focused on the area of women's health, where the investment does not exceed 2%. It is also true that this market shows significant growth, which is very encouraging”.
According to a McKinsey article from last year, approximately 1% of healthcare research and innovation goes into women-specific diseases beyond oncology. Despite the fact that women represent half of the world's population and 80% of purchasing decisions in the health sector, "women's health has been considered a niche market," the study points out, and warns that " This is beginning to change, which translates into better health outcomes for women and new opportunities for investors, companies, employees and other stakeholders in the health ecosystem.”
Laura-June Clarke (31), co-founder of Moonai, an app that offers sound therapy to relieve menstrual pain, points out that "There is still a lack of understanding about the economic benefits that a company focused on women's health can bring. Investment funds sometimes see it only as something ethical or social impact. It is frustrating, because we have to try harder to demonstrate the contribution at a financial level”.
His company received a total investment of 200,000 euros last year and, at the time of this interview, is close to finalizing a new round of investment. “Today we have support from the Apple App Store Foundation program, AWS Emea, Freeda Media and Barcelona Health Hub”, celebrates the founder.
The Belgian-English commercial engineer, who has a master's degree in Business Innovation and "more than ten years of research into the relationship between sounds and the brain", had the idea of developing Moonai about three years ago in Barcelona during a hackathon , which is an intensive meeting in which innovative solutions are sought collaboratively. It was then that she decided to move to this city permanently to set up her new company.
The doctor Agnès Arbat (49) founded together with Ignasi Canals the biotechnological company Oxolife in 2013, with the aim of developing drugs to improve female fertility. “Being a startup founded 50/50 with my partner, I never felt underrepresented,” says the CEO of the Oxolife company, which on her website indicates that it has a “gender-balanced” team.
Arbat explains that “in the forums where we presented our project there used to be more of a male presence and when we started looking for capital in 2018, the focus on women's health was not yet on. That made it more difficult." However, for her this trend "has been improving in recent years" and she clarifies that "it did not mean a great barrier, since we were able to close our first round of investment in a few months." Oxolife has raised a total of 10 million euros, half in national collaborative challenges and the other in private capital.
Your company is now one step away from achieving a major milestone. During this month of March, the results of its first clinical trial in 307 patients diagnosed with infertility will be announced. "If its efficacy is proven, we would be able to offer the first drug to improve the rate of embryo implantation," says the doctor.
According to The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) 2018 publication Why Women-Owned Startups Are a Better Bet, female-founded or co-founded startups generated twice the revenue per dollar invested than all-male startups. “It has been shown that we are good at managing, that companies founded by women are more profitable faster. The problem is that when we present our projects to investors, it is usually to men who have unconscious gender biases”, says Katrina Walker.
Indeed, leadership positions in venture capital firms, which are responsible for driving startups economically, are mainly occupied by men. "Only 5% of the managing partners of EU venture capital funds are women," says an article from the European Investment Fund published in March 2022 and warns: "The venture capital companies that have a partner are three times more likely to invest in companies run by a woman.
Given this funding gap, investment funds exclusively for women have been created globally, focused on promoting initiatives led by women. One example is WA4STEAM, a Barcelona-based international community of female business angels seeking to expand the female business presence in the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and architecture, and mathematics) fields.
"Despite the fact that you find yourself in an environment where there are mainly men, it is important to appreciate that there are more and more women, who also become benchmarks and inspire others," says CEO Marina Rigau and adds: "It is a very collaborative environment where we seek to help each other. I have met many women in leadership positions who open their agenda to you, introduce you to other people and show you how they have done it”.
For Agnès Arbat, “There is this corporate feeling among startup founders, of sharing good practices and helping each other”. Carrying out a startup –says the CEO of Oxolife– “is a roller coaster, it implies a long process where no day will be the same as the other”.
The mother of two young men, Arbat still remembers the time she was unable to attend her daughter's college graduation ceremony. “I was very excited to be there, but we had a meeting of researchers in Prague that I couldn't miss. Sometimes you have to make important sacrifices, but then they have their compensation, ”she explains.
Marina Rigau is the mother of two children, one five years old and the other three years old. Her partner and scientific director of her project, Eva Colás, has two children of the same age. “We are very committed to conciliation, not only family but also personal. We have instilled in the company working for objectives, where each one can organize their time as they want", explains the CEO and points out: "If you are well, in the end you pay more".
“One of the luxuries of starting your own company is that you can imprint your ethos on it,” says Katrina Walker, who was eight months pregnant when answering questions for Lifestyle Magazine. “I don't know what to expect when my baby is born. I would love to hear how other female startup founders have done, to get more visibility for their stories,” she says.
“It is true that if you are a mother and CEO you are those two things and that's it, you don't have time for yourself. But I believe that they can be made to coexist”, says Marina Rigau. For her, "As a CEO, being a mother is something positive, it gives you values, it helps you in the organization and in the ability to focus on what is important or urgent, all things that make you a better director."
“Regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, whether or not you have children, if you have an adventurous spirit and a clear goal, an idea that can change the current standard of things, you have to move forward,” says Agnès Arbat.
With their advances, these founders open the way for future entrepreneurs. “I don't like being presented as a female CEO all the time. I am a CEO and I am also a woman, yes. But I don't want my actions or achievements to be defined by my gender. However, I understand that it is important that we take the opportunity to raise awareness and visibility”, says Laura-June Clarke. For her part, Marina Rigau indicates: "I love to think that one day we can become benchmarks so that other girls and women can also dare to take the step."
Katrina Walker spends a good part of her schedule attending entrepreneurial forums. "I love talking to young women about creating and launching new companies," says the CEO and says: "We need more women in venture capital, creating products and running companies."
