Female-founded fintechs make better investments, report says

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The UK Fintech Focus report reveals that fintechs founded by women are better investments than those fintechs set up by men. The gender of start-ups is correlated with the success of the fledgling companies, the report says, with fintechs started by women having double the internal rate of return compared to those started by men.

The results were, admittedly, skewed by the report including Starling Bank, which raised £233, and was founded by a woman. There are very low rates of fintechs started by women overall, so the study’s author, KPMG, noted the interesting results despite this.

Head of high growth ventures at KPMG, Amanda Price, said the data reinforces that the lack of female fintech leaders is not a matter of capability or performance, but of gender bias and workplace imbalance. Women in fintech start-ups in Australia are a rare species, with some numbers saying female start-up founders are about 22 per cent.

Interesting findings of the report

  • Only nine companies, which is 10 per cent of the total, have a female founder or co-founder.

  • Eight of those companies are in retail financial services, making the number of female founders in technology or processing services extremely low.

  • There were no women represented in regtech, insurtech or lendingtech.

  • The female fintech founders were slightly younger than their peers

  • Female founded fintechs raised 110 per cent more than their peers

  • Higher first round valuations by 12 per cent

  • Ninety per cent more equity was given to external investors in the first round

  • First round amount raised was 25 per cent more than peers

  • Value per share increase was 110 per cent higher from the first round compared with peers

  • Cumulative profit after tax - eight per cent higher losses than peers

  • The internal rate of return (IRR) in the last round was 133 per cent higher than peers

  • IRR at last valuation for first round investors was 75 per cent higher

  • Last valuation 39 per cent higher than peers

View the full UK Fintech Focus report