At Alberts we value diversity, equity and inclusion and have publicly spoken about why we are investing in equality and how we are doing it. We are far from perfect, but we are consciously reviewing how we can continually evolve our workplace culture and practices.
When we look at broader investment statistics, unfortunately the portion of investment going to all female identifying founders remains disproportionately low with statistics ranging from female identifying founders raising only 1.95%1 of funding in 2022 in Australia (2022 TechCrunch) to 23% of 2022 deals involving at least one female identifying founder (The State of Australian Funding report 20222).
In the interest of transparency, Alberts has decided to report our gender statistics through various stages of our investment process. We have already been monitoring this internally to continue to reduce bias and improve outcomes throughout our investment process. However, we wanted to be public about what we see in the market to create more transparency for founders and to build greater focus and support for investment in female identifying founders.
Here are our present statistics for the gender breakdown of founders we have backed, we have seen, and those that have progressed to late-stage due diligence up to the end of Q2 2023 since the start of our fund in 2020.
Alberts are proud to be sharing these statistics alongside several other venture capital players in the Australian ecosystem, who are also keen to shine a spotlight on gender diversity, increase the transparency of this reporting across the industry and build support for greater investment in female identifying founders.
We will be updating these numbers regularly as our portfolio grows.
Gender Diversity Portfolio/Fund Reporting end June 2023*
| Self-reported founder make-up | All Female identifying | Mixed team | All male identifying |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of capital invested | 35% | 14% | 51% |
| Percentage of deals closed | 39% | 17% | 44% |
| Percentage of deals progressed to due diligence | 21% | 31% | 48% |
| Percentage of deals progressed to a meeting | 21% | 30% | 49% |
| Percentage of deals screened | 14% | 30% | 56% |
| Self-reported founder make-up |
All Female identifying |
Mixed team |
All male identifying |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of capital invested | 35% | 14% | 51% |
| Percentage of deals closed | 39% | 17% | 44% |
| Percentage of deals progressed to due diligence |
21% | 31% | 48% |
| Percentage of deals progressed to a meeting |
21% | 30% | 49% |
| Percentage of deals screened | 14% | 30% | 56% |
*Statistics based on reported/ known founder demographics, we have excluded unreported/ unknown gender statistic companies.
We have committed to reporting these statistics on a bi-annual basis and look to improve transparency as we’re able to collect more data. In the future we hope to report gender statistics on management/board and staff levels of our portfolio companies as well as statistics beyond gender to support a broad range of founders.
