The era of women-led IPOs is here!
Only 22 women led IPOs in the 200 year history of the public markets but the change is here to stay.
The New York Stock Exchange was founded 204 years ago in 1817 and has seen thousands of companies go public. But here’s the shocking statistic: ONLY 22 IPOs in the history of the US public markets were of companies that were founded and led by women founders. This statistic is deplorable beyond measure but also brings to surface the inequality in the ecosystem, where women have historically been at a disadvantage - not because of lower competency but the sole fact that they’re...argh...women!
200 years later, the truth remains that fewer than 13% of all VC decision-makers are women, and less than 3% of all VC dollars flow to companies led only by women. This is true for the US & the statistics are far worse for the rest of the world. Historically women have had to fight for the right to work, right to vote, right to education, right to literally any BASIC human rights (thanks RBG - forever a fan!) - so these statistics shouldn’t be of a surprise but given that we’re in 2021 it just makes you wonder how much progress we’ve really made as a society.
"You can judge a nation, and how successful it will be, based on how it treats its women and its girls." —President Obama
As someone who wrote in slam books (yes back in the 90s) about my ‘dream occupation’ being a CEO or a businesswoman, you can imagine my excitement when I see women lead and succeed. It’s a pleasure to see women have audacious aspirations and goals, work hard & beat the s*** out of patriarchy. It was for the same reason, I felt extremely fulfilled while leading the SheLeadsTech program for Facebook in India that scaled to 700+ women entrepreneurs running tech-enabled businesses from 88 cities across India. Their stories were basically my story: fighting against all odds and trying to do our best to win. And that’s the exact momentum I see brewing across the world: women are taking the startup ecosystem by storm and writing history one IPO at a time!
Even though there were only 4 companies out of the total 442 that went public in 2020 which were both founded and led by women, you cannot deny the importance of this slow but steady momentum. Eighteen of the 20 women-led IPOs were in just the past seven years (2014-21), which is why the era of women-led IPOs is finally here.
Investors in the ecosystem today (myself included) have a responsibility not only to bet on women entrepreneurs but also to make sure that women-led companies don’t get undervalued. The median valuations for women-founded late-stage startups lagged the broader market by about $8 million, and that gap widened to roughly $17 million during the pandemic, with the median valuation for women-founded late-stage startups falling slightly from 2019, according to a report.
Anyway, what’s clear is that there’s lots of work to do to really enable this change but for any little girl looking for some inspiration to match her slam book dreams, I’m going to leave this list below. My hope is that one day this list won’t be able to fit just 1-page & there’ll be thousands of successful women founders and investors.
Meet the 22 women stalwarts, founders, and CEOs:
Muriel Siebert founded the financial services firm Siebert Financial and took it public in 1967.
Cathy Hughes founded media company Urban One and took it public in 1999.
Diane Greene co-founded software giant VMWare in 1998. It was acquired by Dell EMC and then taken public in 2007 with Greene at the helm.
Pamela Marrone founded Marrone Bio Innovations and took it public in August 2013.
Bonnie Anderson founded the healthcare company Veracyte and took it public in October 2013.
Rachel King founded GlycoMimetics, a biotechnology company focused on oncology. She took it public in January 2014.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo launched Care.com, a resource for parents to find childcare help, and took it public in January 2014.
Lisa Conte founded the pharmaceutical company Jaguar Animal Health and took it public in May 2015.
Lynn Jurich cofounded Sunrun, the home solar power company. She took it public in August 2015.
Jennifer Doudna founded Editas Medicine, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, and took it public in February 2016.
Jill Milne created Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, and took it public in June 2016.
Therese Tucker founded enterprise software company BlackLine and took it public in October 2016.
Katrina Lake founded personal shopping company Stitch Fix and took it public in November 2017.
Julia Hartz co-founded event management and ticketing site Eventbrite and took it public in September 2018.
Emily Leproust cofounded the synthetic DNA manufacturer Twist Bioscience and took it public in October 2018.
Casey Lynch co-founded the biopharmaceutical company Cortexyme and took it public in May 2019.
Julie Wainwright founded the luxury consignment store The RealReal and took it public in May 2019.
Maria L. MacCecchini founded the biotech company Annovis Bio and took it public in January 2020.
Roni Mamluk founded the oncology company Ayala Pharmaceuticals and took it public in May 2020.
Leen Kawas founded the pharmaceutical company Athira Pharma and took it public in September 2020.
Ann Marie Sastry founded artificial intelligence software company Amesite and took it public in September 2020.
Whitney Wolfe Herd founded the dating app Bumble and took it public in February 2021.