Since I have been raising and deploying a venture fund focused on addressing health of women lately, I have had numerous occasions to be in rooms where the discussion ended up at “it’s really hard to raise venture capital for women’s health companies.” The whole discussion of venture funding for women’s health (and by women’s health, I do NOT mean things that are limited only to conditions faced ONLY by women) is getting a lot of play lately as many organizations have, thankfully, risen to the occasion of developing funds to drive this market forward. Granted, most of these funds remain on the small side and there are many entrepreneurs competing for these fresh new greenbacks, but hey, progress is progress.
But I have also noticed an alarming narrative in many of these conversations, among the funds themselves and especially among the entrepreneurs. This narrative tends to focus on how solving women’s health problems is more or less a “crusade” and “the right thing to do.” Often time the conversations gets wrapped around the axle of “female entrepreneurs don’t get no respect,” as Rodney Dangerfield would say if he were Rhoda Dangerfield.
Ok, it’s true; there is far less respect and attention given to women’s health for all the reasons we know; but consider this: a) we are where we are until we make it change; and b) the only way to change it is through delivering returns to investors that make them more gender-blind. Entrepreneurs remember this: the way to an investor’s heart is through their bank account…wait a minute, most investors don’t even have hearts. If you can’t show investors how your company makes them money, your crusade is only interesting to them in the off hours, if at all.
The record on women’s health companies making investors buckets of money hasn’t really been established (yet) and thus the investor conviction that this is a good sector has not yet fully emerged. It is logical that is should and will, but the proof is in the greenbacks.
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