REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft's M12,
Mayfield and Pivotal Ventures on
Thursday announced the second global Female Founders Competition to
accelerate funding for women entrepreneurs developing
business-to-business software-as-a-service and deeptech solutions.
Eligible women-led startups developing enterprise tech solutions in
the United States, Europe, Israel and India are encouraged to submit applications
beginning Oct. 17, 2019. Four winning
companies will receive a total of $6
million in venture funding, along with access to technology,
resources, mentoring and other benefits.
"Last year's competition helped highlight that there are
innovative female entrepreneurs developing enterprise tech
solutions, and they just aren't getting equal access to capital,"
said Peggy Johnson, executive vice
president, Business Development, Microsoft Corp. "The tech industry
can't afford to keep leaving women's good ideas on the table. We
need to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs, and
together with Mayfield and Pivotal
Ventures, we aim to do just that with our second Female Founders
Competition."
Venture capital funding, particularly for seed-stage companies,
is critical to power ideas from incubation to go-to-market. Venture
funding for female-founded companies continues to be nominal in
comparison with dollars invested in male-only-led teams. Last year,
companies founded solely by women garnered 2.3% of the total
capital invested in venture-backed startups, according to
PitchBook.1
Regardless of this disadvantage, female founders continue to
deliver outsized returns. In a study conducted by MassChallenge and
Boston Consulting Group (BCG), women-founded businesses delivered
more than two times as much revenue per dollar invested than their
male counterparts. If women entrepreneurs received funding on par
with their male colleagues, BCG estimates the global economy
could experience up to a $5 trillion
boost. According to Gartner, "The enterprise software market will
experience the strongest growth in 2019, reaching $457 billion, up 9% from $419 billion in 2018."2 Investing in
women-led enterprise companies is essential to economic growth and
to closing the gender funding gap.
"As a firm with a 50-year history of people-first investing, we
are always looking for new ways to discover bold entrepreneurs,"
said Navin Chaddha, managing
director, Mayfield. "We are
thrilled to partner with M12 and Pivotal Ventures on this
innovative Female Founders Competition, through which we will find
and invest in women creating built-to-last enterprise companies. In
addition to providing funding, we plan to share our playbook with
competition winners on how to accelerate their journey from idea to
iconic company."
"I am delighted to partner with M12 and Mayfield on this important competition," said
Melinda Gates, philanthropist and
founder of Pivotal Ventures. "Enterprise technology is shaping our
world in countless ways, but it will never reach its full potential
unless women and their ideas are equally represented within the
field."
Submissions will be accepted from Oct.
17, 2019, to Dec. 15, 2019,
and are open across Europe,
India, Israel, Canada (excluding Quebec) and the
United States. Companies will be eligible to apply if they
have at least one female founder, have raised no more than
$5 million in combined equity funding
and/or debt loans upon date of application, and offer or intend to
release a product, service or platform addressing a critical
business problem for a global market.
A live finals pitch competition will take place March 18-19, 2020, with the announcement of
winners to follow shortly thereafter. Two enterprise software
startups will earn investment awards of $2
million each, and two deeptech startups innovating through
substantial scientific and research advances will earn investment
awards of $1 million each. Full
guidelines and contest information can be found at
www.FemaleFoundersComp.com.
About Mayfield
Mayfield is a global venture
capital firm with a people-first philosophy and $1.8 billion under management. Mayfield invests primarily in early-stage
consumer, enterprise and healthIT companies. Since its founding 50
years ago, the firm has invested in more than 500 companies,
resulting in 117 IPOs and more than 200 mergers or acquisitions.
Some notable investments include HashiCorp, Lyft, Marketo, Mammoth
Biosciences, Moat, Poshmark, ServiceMax and SolarCity. For more
information, go to https://www.mayfield.com or
follow @MayfieldFund.
About Pivotal Ventures
Pivotal Ventures is an investment and incubation company created
by Melinda Gates. We partner with
organizations and individuals who share our urgency for social
progress in the United States.
Together, we grow understanding around issues, expand
participation, encourage cooperation and fuel new approaches that
substantially improve people's lives. For more information, please
visit https://www.pivotalventures.org/.
About M12
As the corporate venture arm for Microsoft, M12 (formerly
Microsoft Ventures) invests in enterprise software companies in the
Series A through C funding stage with a focus on big data &
analytics, business SaaS, cloud infrastructure, machine learning
& artificial intelligence, productivity, and security. As part
of its value-add to portfolio companies, M12 offers unique access
to strategic go-to-market resources and relationships globally. The
Company has offices in San
Francisco, Seattle,
London and Tel Aviv. For more information, visit
https://m12.vc.
1 PitchBook article, "The VC Female Founders
Dashboard," Feb. 28, 2019.
https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/the-vc-female-founders-dashboard
2 Gartner Press Release, "Gartner Says Global IT
Spending to Grow 0.6% in 2019," July 10,
2019.
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-10-07-gartner-says-global-it-spending-to-grow-06-in-2019
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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.