A new industry led Invest in Women Taskforce will work to unlock private investment in female business leaders and make the UK the best place in the world to be a female founder.
For too long, innovative, women-led start-ups have been held back due to a lack of finance and the proportion of equity capital investment going to all-female founder teams has been stuck at around 2% in the UK for the past decade.
The core aim of the Taskforce is to raise a bespoke funding pot for female-founded businesses through private capital and address the wider challenges that female entrepreneurs specifically face to help unlock their potential to establish and grow their enterprises.
The new taskforce will be industry led and co-chaired by entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow and Barclay’s Hannah Bernard, with Small Business Minister, Kevin Hollinrake, representing the government. The membership of the taskforce will be set out in due course.
Hannah Bernard OBE, Co-Chair of the Invest in Women taskforce and Head of Business Banking, Barclays UK said:
This is an area I am incredibly passionate about, so it is a privilege to be offered this position. I believe that the key to the UK’s growth will be enabling every single entrepreneur in this country to thrive; female entrepreneurs face significantly higher barriers to get their businesses the support and investment they need, from seed funding for start-ups, through to the challenges of gaining scale-up investment.
I’m really excited to be working with Debbie who is an ideal partner given her entrepreneurial credentials and I believe together, we can make a real difference.
Debbie Wosskow OBE, Co-Chair of the Invest in Women taskforce and multi exit entrepreneur said:
Women leading businesses shouldn’t have to face funding challenges to build and grow their business, because of their gender.
As an experienced entrepreneur, who founded her first business 25 years ago, I know first-hand the importance of breaking down barriers and making meaningful change for female led businesses.
By putting funding front and centre of this Taskforce, we aim to make the UK the best place in the world to be a female founder.