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Club manager:
Ina Schlie
.
Photo: PR
The founder has already passed a handful of appointments. After meetings in cafés, the private investor, who has announced a stake in her start-up, is now inviting her to dinner in exclusive restaurants. "But again and again he put me off to the next meeting," says the entrepreneur. After a few more weeks, she issues an ultimatum: The private investor signals that he will sign the participation agreement. Then he sends an invalid document. When confronted with this on the phone, he says that he had just changed his mind: "Sorry."
The founder, who talks about her problems in finding capital for her start-up, wants to remain anonymous. She fears that if she makes such episodes public, she will fall into disrepute. Then it might be even more difficult to get money from investors in the narrow German tech scene. She says the incident was no exception. A successful Berlin tech entrepreneur wrote to her after an event where she presented her company that he didn't want to invest, but that he wanted to go out to eat with her. Frustrating: "It takes time and nerves," she says. "I just want to build my company."
The case may seem blatant, but it shows the experiences of many female founders and the associated structural problems: For years, the proportion of women among founders in Germany has remained at around 15 percent. Studies show that female founders receive less capital than founders - according to an analysis by the Boston Consulting Group, they earn more than twice as much sales per dollar invested as their male counterparts (78 versus 31 cents). There is no socioculture that could help women founders: There are hardly any female partners among the venture capitalists. In the eight most active private companies in Germany, according to a count by manager magazin, just four of 80 partner positions are occupied by women.
"If you belong to the minority, you need even more courage to take a new step," says
Ina Schlie
(52), who headed the tax department of the software company SAP for a good 15 years and also campaigned for more diversity at Walldorf . "There is a lack of role models. And that male-dominated networks are a deterrent, I have seen with many of my mentees. Many female founders tell me that they are underestimated."
To change that, Schlie has now been able to engage some prominent top managers in German business: Douglas boss
Tina Müller
, Deutsche Bahn board member
Sigrid Nikutta
, Bosch co-managing director
Filiz Albrecht
, Facebook manager
Angelika Gifford
, Thjnk founder and -Vorständin
Karen Heumann
, Member of supervisory
Simone Menne
, former Federal Minister
Brigitte Zypries
and Celonis-product manager
Hala zein
.
They have all become members of Schlie's new association, Encourageventures, which is supposed to support female founders from the idea to the possible IPO or sale of the company. As co-director, Schlie has
Alexa Hergenröther
(51) at her side, until last year she was divisional director at K + S. The idea: start-ups with at least one female founder on their team should be able to find suitable mentors and sponsors through the association. The experienced should help to hone the business models and presentations; there should be workshops and events. The aim is to build Germany's largest network of female investors.
The managers did not have to promise fixed investment sums, but: "The minimum requirement for membership is that you want to make an investment in the near future," says Schlie. Around half of the women involved in the association already hold stakes in start-ups. New investments are intended to bring pitch evenings closer to private investors. Every six weeks, selected start-ups present their ideas there, which can either apply via the website or are suggested by investors.
In order to collect really large sums, Encourageventures wants to set up a growth fund with a size of 100 to 200 million euros, which can then continue to invest in the teams. An ambitious figure: the median of the first funds for newly founded VC companies was recently around 60 million US dollars. To this end, the association has joined forces with Auxxo, an investment collective made up of private investors
Gesa Miczaika
,
Fabiola Hochkirchen
and
Bettine Schmitz
.
They got together around two years ago to invest primarily in founding teams with women.
Hochkirchen told the "Handelsblatt" at the time that they did not necessarily want to bet on the billions in valuations, "but expect a lower failure rate".
The thesis: "Women start a business more conservatively. They examine business models longer instead of striving for growth quickly."
It has not yet been decided who will head the new fund.
So far, Schlie and her comrades have been working on a new management concept for this: "96 percent of the VC funds are run by men. We don't have to adopt this functionality," says Schlie.
"Instead of 16-hour days, it should be possible to manage the fund in such a way that it is compatible with private life and new work values."
We are already in talks with several interested major investors.
Schlie expects specific news about the vehicle in six to twelve months.
The organization is jumping on a young trend that spills over from the USA.
For a few years now, there have been an increasing number of funds that only invest in diverse start-up teams.
In Germany, entrepreneur and networker
Tijen Onaran
(36) announced in November 2020 that she would set up a 50 million fund for
female
founders.
According to Onaran, there are currently talks with investors that the response is strong.
In the meantime she has made three private investments.
The stagnating proportion of female founders already sparked the discussion in the German tech industry last year.
Kati Ernst
(40), founder of the period underwear label Ooia, called for a quota for women in portfolios of venture capitalists.
Lea-Sophie Cramer
(34), founder of the erotic mail order company Amorelie, jumped up and supported the idea: The quota is a "starting point to remedy this blatant imbalance," said Cramer on LinkedIn. "If this continues, I'll go nuts soon."
The donors, however, hesitate. The digital association Bitkom and the Federal Association of German Startups therefore published a position paper at the end of March and appealed to investors and larger digital companies to commit themselves to quotas. A website has been set up where venture capitalists can volunteer to be listed. Once a year, the participants should publish how high the proportion of women in the portfolio and their own investment team is. After all, five companies participated at the start, and since then 15 more have been added. But some big names are missing, such as Lakestar by the well-known investor Klaus Hommels (54). The associations say that talks are being held with other funds, and the first transparency reports are planned for autumn.
"Money is old and white," says
Christoph Behn
(42). "The fact that investors are blocking a quota may also be due to the fear of losing their own importance. It has long been clear that various teams perform better." Behn founded the Kartenmacherei online shop, which recently had sales of around 50 million euros. Today he invests his money with his company Better Ventures, and plans to make around ten investments a year with it soon.
Behn has set itself a quota of at least 30 percent female founders in the portfolio.
"We have already looked at more than 300 start-ups," he says, "so that's not a problem at all."
He hopes to be able to set the quota even higher in the future.
"You see too many unsightly examples," says Behn.
"Like a founder and CEO who was pushed out of the company by her investors when she got pregnant."
If Schlie, her network and the other rethinkers are successful, women will soon no longer have to do that to themselves.