Rethinking Gender Lens Investing : Strategies To Increase The Flow Of Capital To Female Founders

The best investors can identify and capitalize on opportunities that others do not - such as betting on high potential female entrepreneurs who are underestimated and underserved by investment markets. Guided by MIT D-Lab and Upaya Social Ventures, this session will explore how investors and other capital providers can better incorporate the voices of female entrepreneurs when 1) allocating capital with a gender lens and 2) applying a gender lens across their investment process. What are the barriers to doing so? What participatory methods can be used to re-imagine solutions, from sourcing to due diligence, to creating appropriate investment vehicles, to increase the flow of capital from investors (and other financiers) to high-potential female-led ventures?

As a strategy, gender-smart investing opens up often overlooked opportunities with attractive financial returns, while simultaneously generating impact. In this highly interactive workshop, participants will have the opportunity to engage with several tools and frameworks and discuss and further their gender-smart agenda. If you are exploring how to adopt gender or diversity solutions across your portfolio and investment process, this session will give you the opportunity to: 1) run a diagnostic to rapidly assess where your organization currently stands in the gender lens integration continuum 2) identify and map out potential challenges and barriers that impede the adoption of gender smart policies and processes 3) and finally, explore how co-design with entrepreneurs and other key stakeholders could lead to more insightful solutions, new models, and increased capacities for innovation.

The session will be designed to help investors identify practical solutions that can be tested / implemented to ensure gender inclusivity in their investment decisions.

If you are an impact investor who is interested in exploring how to adopt gender smart solutions for allocating capital, our workshop will help you get started in doing so. If you have already begun your journey, our workshop will help you evaluate your progress and identify new strategies to apply to meet your financial and inclusivity targets.

More specifically, this hand-on workshop will help investors and other financiers to build or make progress in their gender smart strategies and practices by 1) Identifying the stage of gender inclusivity in their investment decision making 2) Getting access to frameworks and tools to make progress to meet their objectives.

This session is supported by D-Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).