While the startup community is disproportionately dominated by males; female-led startups hitting the unicorn’ status is on the rise. In this infographic, we explored 10 of these women-led startups changing the world.

Start-ups have been a leading business trend of the 21st century with rapid changes driven in part due to technology and in part due to the urgent demands of overall economic unpredictability.

The disruption to markets that traditionally dominated the marketplace can be tied to everything from greater equity in consumer voices through to a shift away from mass multinational dominance for more boutique offerings.

Overall, there is absolutely a historical phenomena of true innovation tied to historical economic trends.

Major examples of this are seen in Hewlett-Packard emerging after the Great Depression (founded in 1939) and Uber beginning after the Great Recession (founded in 2009) as well as so many other companies that prospered against the odds. 

The Changing Startup Scene

This trend of the inception of groundbreaking ideas emerging from economic downturn has seen a profound replication and evolution in the booming start-up and entrepreneurship market of the ‘noughties’.

From the rush on conceptualisation through to rapid developments and compressed product cycles, Steve Blank says this age of start-ups is absolutely different to those of the past.

He writes for Inc:

“Instead of building the maximum number of features, founders treat their vision as a series of untested hypotheses, then get out of the building and test a minimum feature set in the shortest period of time. This lets them deliver a series of minimal viable products to customers in a fraction of the time.” 

One characteristic of this era of start-ups is their greater capacity to bring unique and compelling ideas to market that can dynamically respond to customer needs, revise, then relaunch.

Growing Profile of Women-led Statups

Within this, there is one asset class that’s of particular interest and that’s female-led start-ups.

These businesses and organisations are making their mark at a rapidly accelerating rate.

With historical investment growth in these female-led start-ups from 2015 to 2020 in particular, investors are finally starting to sit up and take notice of their world-changing ideas.

While this shift comprises only a small proportion of all venture capital investment, the impact is actually quite wide-reaching.

Christine Tsai writes of this,

“Even though investment in all-female founding teams was only 2.7 percent of capital invested last year [2019], venture capital investment in all-female founding teams rose 10 percent between 2018 and 2019 to $3.3 billion–up from $2.1 billion in 2017.”   

This influx in both overall female-led start-ups and investment pledges has been coined a ‘pink-winged stampede’.

Concurrently, with these start-ups reaching a billion dollar ‘unicorn’ valuation that’s made history year on year based on the unprecedented growth rate of the past five years, female founders and co-founders are making waves.

In terms of convincing investors, BCG reports that all forecasts and evidence have found these female-led start-ups to be more profitable overall.

In their report they say, “Businesses founded by women ultimately deliver higher revenue — more than twice as much per dollar invested — than those founded by men, making women-owned companies better investments for financial backers.” 

To showcase this topic, Trainwest developed this infographic ‘Female Start-Ups Changing the World in 2020’.

Their analysis and compilation of these fascinating start-ups outlines their path to success and the energy that drives them in their work to shake up their markets.

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As part of the analysis of the following nine start-ups, they will expand on their stories accompanied with relevant insights and statistics in their niches and beyond:

Top 10 Female-led Startups

1. Glossier – beauty disruptor (Beauty)

2. Grab – app-based transportation business (Transportation)

3. Canva – web-based graphic design (Creative Services Software) 

4. Clue – women’s health app (FemTech)

5. Rent The Runway – designer fashion rental service (Fashion)

6. AppsTech – enterprise application solutions (Technology)

7. Karma – food sustainability app (Food Waste Reduction)

8. Automio – legal services cloud-based automation technology (Legal Technology)

9. KaNDy Therapeutics – women’s health services (Pharmaceuticals)

In closing, these are the companies who are going to shape the future in ways that truly bring value and enrich communities.

Crunchbase.com writes of these start-ups, “Female-founded unicorns show us that these companies, from an investor side, are far from a charity case, they’re vehicles for returns.”

Read on for the full list and to learn more about these extraordinary founders who are making their mark in fashion, beauty, social change, services, technology, development, and much more!

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