On the Consumer Stage, we are talking now about Diversity in VC and why this topic matters to the attendees. "I think the topic gets often quite personal but if we look at the data of diverse teams (...) then you see that this is something very important for success and not just about ethics and quotas", Videesha Böckle (Founding Partner of Signals Venture Capital) says while talking about the advantages of different inputs and opinions in VC-Teams.
Anna Katharina Alex (Founder of Outfittery, a personal shopping service for men) thinks that a reason for the lack of diversity in teams is also, that it "is exhausting, it is an effort when there is that other person with a different background, a different opinion that needs to be discussed. (...) The statistics show that it's worth it though."
For Hans Jakob Raffauf (Co-Founder & Chairman of Clue, an App that calculates and predicts users periods and PMS based on their data) a big part of the problem is the pure unconsciousness of male investors when it comes to the lack of females in their team or investments.
Mayra Frank (Marketing Lead, Google for Startups Germany) sees a problem in the ecosystem that doesn't provide the right preconditions for women in the industry. "That has to change", she emphasizes. One of those preconditions are the difficulties about how pregnancy is handled.
"I think often it is a rational decision. The woman gets pregnant, the couple sits down and calculates what is left at the end of the month. The still existing pay-gap makes that decision most of the times pretty clear", Anna-Katharina Alex (Outfittery) explains her approach of the problem that a lot of women chose to stay home with the child. "Unfortunately, the thought of part-time leadership is still a very foreign concept to most people."
Mayra Frank says that it's very hard for females to decide for fight or flight, to chose if you really want to stand up for females in this industry because you ask yourself "can I not just be a founder?". But in the end, it's in the hands of those ones who have a voice to use it and change things for the better.
At the end of the panel discussion, Vanessa Gstettenbauer (Principal of btov Partners and host) asks the round of attendees to end the sentence: "The future of funding is female because..."
"... gender difference is an artificial construct in the first place", finishes Hans Raffauf (Clue).
"The future of funding is female if we want it, both, men and women have to make it possible", ends Anna Katharina Alex the panel.
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