Patents, Not Sexism, May Be Reason Women Lag in Venture Capital

Article here. Excerpt:

'While women own more than a third of all businesses in the U.S., companies run by them get only about 3 percent of venture capital funding. Is that one more example of sexism in Silicon Valley?

Maybe not, according to a new study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which found that the lack of funding may be partly explained by what it calls a gender patent gap.

For entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, patents are a bellwether of innovation. If a firm has a patent-worthy invention, it’s far more likely to get financing. Managers of startups reported that more than three-quarters of venture capital investors consider whether a firm has patents when deciding whether to fund it, according to the study.
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Women participate in teams that obtain just 18.8 percent of all patents, according to the Washington-based IWPR. While those numbers are up substantially from the 1970s, the change is proceeding at such a glacial pace that it will take until 2092 for women to catch up, the study said.'

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