Does gender matter?

Start-ups, often working on innovative digital products, together with the Venture Capital (VC) funds that invest in them, form a dynamically evolving ecosystem. What role do women play in this rapidly changing environment? Can their voice guide the development of solutions and improvements, or do they rather remain in the shadows? Let’s take a look at what the latest reports and research regarding this sector have to say about this – both from a local and global perspective.

Start-ups

Teams

Women are in a distinct minority in teams creating cutting-edge digital products: in half of Polish start-ups, they make up only a quarter of the team or less. Only in 21% of such entities, do women make up more than half of the team ( the “Polish Start-ups 2022” report).

Female founders

Depending on the study, the global percentage of start-ups founded by women ranges from 15 to 20% (Startup Genome, 2023, Statista, 2022). We lack analogical detailed data on the Polish start-up ecosystem, however it is known that one in three companies in our country is established by a woman (PARP, 2022)