Amsterdam’s Borski Fund secures €5M from Visa Foundation to reduce the gender gap in VC funding
Founders of Borski Fund, Simone Brummelhuis and Laura Rooseboom | Image credit: Borski Fund
Amsterdam-based Borski Fund, an innovative VC fund that only invests in companies with gender-diverse teams, announced that it has raised €5M in a fresh round of funding from Visa Foundation. The company has now reached a fund size of €40M.
By collaborating with organisations like Borski Fund, the Visa Foundation aims to remove obstacles that restrict women-owned companies from having fair access to funding.
Goal of the Visa Foundation
The formalisation of this funding was made possible by the same goals of the two organisations, which include moving gender lens investing from the niche to the mainstream, and reducing the gender gap in access to capital.
The latter is a part of the Visa Foundation’s Equitable Access Initiative, a five-year, $200M strategic commitment to support gender-diverse and inclusive small companies throughout the world as they develop and become more resilient by assisting them in obtaining capital.
Najada Kumbuli, Head of Investments at Visa Foundation, says, “Visa Foundation is proud to support the Borski Fund and its work to invest in and empower women founders, helping to construct a more equitable and sustainable financial ecosystem in which access to capital is ubiquitous for women and gender diverse small businesses. We were impressed by the team’s track record in investing in innovative, high growth and high impact women led businesses, while creating and fostering a thriving diverse entrepreneurial ecosystem in Europe.”
Borski Fund – Everything you need to know
Founded in 2019 by Simone Brummelhuis and Laura Rooseboom, Borski Fund is a venture capital fund that makes it easier for inclusive and gender diverse startups to obtain funding.
The fund is named after Johanna Borski. She was a role model for many female entrepreneurs. Borski was a female investor. By investing early and acquiring nearly half of the shares issued in “De Nederlandsche Bank” in 1814, she amassed a fortune. In 1840, she used the gained money to save the “Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij” from bankruptcy. When Borski Fund was established, it was motivated by the way Borski utilised money to improve the world at a time when investing was mostly a male-dominated industry.
Borski Fund believes that success has no gender. The investment vision of Borski Fund has a threefold impact on the modern startup ecosystem, supporting inclusive innovation, inclusive economic growth, and elevating female leadership.
- First: a team with a female predominance makes the investments.
- Second: investing in female entrepreneurs reduces the diversity gap in venture capital, advancing the goal of creating a more equitable playing field for PE investors. All of Borski’s portfolio companies were started by female tech entrepreneurs, many of whom were motivated by data and artificial intelligence (AI).
- Third: more goods and services for women are produced by firms with female founders. By investing in startups in femtech and the advocation of sustainability, Borski enables innovations to flow into the market, creating a beneficial impact on the women for whom the goods are intended
Founder Simone Brummelhuis says, “Ultimately, all companies should be led and operated by a diverse team. Research shows that diverse teams create an environment for inclusive innovation and no tunnel-vision in decision making and business policy.”
“Before this vision, we must facilitate a feminisation of the workplace and of positions of leadership. From the board of directors of large multinationals, to bank managers granting access to credit, and to female VC’s, women are needed to project equality and diversity in access to power,” adds Brummelhuis.
“The investment diversity gap is real”
According to a statement from Borski Fund, the financial diversity gap is genuine and frequently much greater than imagined in the reality of the startup ecosystem. A mere 2 per cent from all VC investments went to women-founded businesses in 2021, the lowest percentage since 2016.
The data should not be taken lightly when combined with the finding that investments made in businesses created by women have a greater turnover. For instance, a study by the Boston Consulting Group found that firms headed by women made 151 per cent more revenue than those run by men for every dollar of funding collected.
Additionally, because venture capital is still a disproportionately male-dominated industry, structural factors that contribute to the gender gap in access to finance come from both sides of the investing table.
As per a 2022 research by IDC European Women in VC, there is still a sizable gender imbalance in European venture capital, with women making up just 15 per cent of general partners at VC companies.
Rooseboom says, “Men generally invest in men, and male investors dominate the industry. If more women were involved in the investment decisions of banks and large investment funds, more capital would flow into ventures guided or inspired by women.” Currently, women investors make up 77 per cent of Borski’s Fund.
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