Friday, July 21, 2017

Boston Ecosystem Report: Women Entrepreneurs Making Gains but Face Funding and Networking Barriers

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While women have made gains in business ownership, they face barriers related to funding and accessing growth capital, according to a team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Pennsylvania, and University of North Carolina Asheville.Led by UMass Boston Professor of Management Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, researchers spent the past year studying the regional entrepreneurial ecosystems in St. Louis, Missouri, and Boston, Massachusetts, focused on understanding the opportunities and challenges for women entrepreneurs in each respective city and region.

Researchers interviewed close to 190 individuals, who included entrepreneurs, investors, and leadership at various incubators, accelerators, networking groups, and educational platforms. These findings are available in a newly released report.

“Our research is both timely and important in terms of understanding why certain inclusion efforts in ecosystems may lead to success while other efforts lead to continued exclusion for women entrepreneurs,” Ozkazanc-Pan said.

In St. Louis, the team found that women entrepreneurs represent close to 45 percent of all business owners compared to 33 percent in Boston, based on 2012 Census data. One of the contributing factors to the rapid rise in the number of women-owned businesses in St. Louis is the cohesive nature of the ecosystem fueled by grassroots efforts of prominent male entrepreneurs and women-focused entrepreneurship support organizations. Their efforts to make St. Louis a great place for entrepreneurship have also resulted in the mainstreaming of gender as important for the growth of the ecosystem. Despite these developments, women face challenges related to scaling their businesses. New, bold efforts including Brazen and the St. Louis Equity in Entrepreneurship Collective are tackling these and other issues with the aim of overcoming all barriers for underrepresented entrepreneurs.

In Boston, the fragmented nature of the ecosystem means women entrepreneurs still face challenges related to scaling their businesses and accessing valuable resources and networks. Groups such as SheStarts, BREAD, Innovation Women, and Accelerate Boston are ...

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