Investment in ‘women-powered’ businesses in Scotland has reached a record high – but they still exit for significantly less than their male peers.
Latest figures show investment in women-powered businesses – led, founded or majority owned by women – attracted £214m in the last 12 months, up 10.5 per cent on the previous year.
JPMorgan Private Bank’s fifth Top 200 Women-Powered Businesses report also found that over the last decade, total equity investment in Scotland’s women-powered businesses – which include the likes of Strathberry, Buzzworks and Activpayroll – reached £1.15bn, accounting for nearly a fifth of total investment in Scotland’s high-growth companies.
However, separate figures from wealth management firm Evelyn Partners show women exit from their businesses for 25 per cent less than their male peers on average.
Alison Fitzsimons, head of entrepreneurs business development at Evelyn Partners, said the significant valuation gap was “indicative of structural barriers, such as access to funding in order to scale and negotiation bias when it comes to an exit”.
“Anecdotally, from years of advising business founders, we know these are both headwinds that can leave female entrepreneurs with lower returns from their hard graft in building businesses,” she told an event in Glasgow to look at the exit findings of the report.