Tell us about the Invest in Women Taskforce – what is its mission and purpose?
The Invest in Women Taskforce is an industry-led, government backed initiative established to drive economic growth through addressing the gender funding gap and make the UK the best place in the world to be a female entrepreneur. For too long, female-powered businesses have been held back due to a lack of funding, even though studies have shown that women deliver 35% higher investment returns. We are on a mission to bring the industry together on this growth mission and drive systemic change to the UK investment landscape.
What was the catalyst for starting it?
For over a decade, the level of investment into female-powered businesses has sat around the 2-3% mark. Not only is this number not increasing, the data shows that we are actually regressing, with just 2 per cent of UK equity investment going to all-female founder teams in 2024, down from an already shameful 2.5 per cent in 2023. Meanwhile, all male teams received over 80%. Add to that the fact that just 15% of senior UK investment professionals are female and 19% of investment teams have no women at all, and we see a worrying lack of diversity in capital allocators. In March last year, the Invest in Women Taskforce was established by the Department for Business and Trade and I and my Co-chair, multi-exit entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow, were asked to lead on this, building on the great work of the Rose Review. Since then, we have been working tirelessly to drive systemic change across the whole breadth of the funding ecosystem.
How has the initiative grown since it was launched last year?
It’s been a busy first year since we launched in March 2024. Since inception, we have convened over £250 million for the funding pool and are close to appointing a female team to run our “Women backing Women” Fund of Funds. We've gained the backing of the UK’s first female Chancellor, launched a report addressing the role of syndicates for female angel investment and held a series of roundtables across the UK. Through numerous events, we’ve engaged with female founders and investors to better understand the challenges they’re currently facing in the UK and have continued to raise awareness of the gender disparity in capital allocation. This is just the beginning, and I am immensely proud of our achievements in our first year.
What has been the Taskforce’s biggest success so far?
In November last year, we proudly announced that the Taskforce had met its initial goal by convening £255M in funding commitments with investors including Barclays, M&G, The British Business Bank, Morgan Stanley, the Visa Foundation, BGF and Aviva. This capital is set to be distributed through our partners' own programmes and the “Women backing Women” Fund which will put money directly into the hands of UK businesses led by female and mixed teams via UK-based, female investment managers. To garner this level of support within one year is a monumental feat and we are immensely grateful to our partners for helping create one of the world's largest funding pools to be deployed for women. This marks our first major step towards addressing the funding disparity and is a testament to our commitment to driving change.
What else is set to come this year?
The immediate focus for the Taskforce is the appointment of a Fund of Fund manager to oversee the deployment and allocation of the 'Women backing Women' fund. We are in the process of selecting the right partner and expect them to be operational later in 2025.
This fund will target UK-based start-ups and growth-stage businesses with female or mixed leadership. Crucially, capital will be allocated through female General Partners – ensuring not just more investment in women, but more women making investment decisions.
If we want to see long-term systemic change, we must back female GPs with capital and influence. This creates a more inclusive investment ecosystem – and ultimately benefits female founders, who we know are far more likely to be funded when women hold the purse strings.
A lot of our readers are start-up/scale up founders. What would your guidance be to them, both as the Invest in Women Co-Chair and in your role as Head of Business Banking at Barclays?
- Back yourself – clearly articulate what sets your business apart and why it is, and will be, successful. Female businesses have been shown to generate 35% better returns than male-led ones, use that to your advantage and set out why yours can be one of them.
- Plan your funding route for growth – there are various routes to accessing investment, from crowdfunding to grants, angel investment to venture capital equity, and debt. Identify the option that best suits you and your business. Don’t forget to leverage support from mentors and advisers to guide your decision and think carefully about what you’re prepared to trade.
- Prepare for bias – it’s an unfortunate truth that women and men are often asked different questions in a pitch. It is not unusual for women to be faced with questions about juggling family life or asked about their risk of failure rather than how they are looking to scale their business. Anticipate these questions and direct your answers to highlight your strategy, success and opportunity.
- Be prepared to pivot – the best entrepreneurs can fail fast and try something new. Remember that hard work can only get you so far – the business has to be commercially viable in the long run.
How would you like to see the investment landscape change in the next decade?
My vision is to see a full meritocracy in action in how capital is deployed – with diverse investment teams, working with diverse General Partners, investing in diverse teams, across the UK, across sectors, across business life stages, enabling UK growth businesses to start, scale and thrive globally.
The UK has the potential to be a global leader in driving gender-balanced investment but to do this, we need to see increased funding across the entire investment spectrum, from micro-financing to scalable finance, and more women into senior investment roles. Ultimately, for sustained change, one cannot succeed without the other and we need to challenge ourselves to apply a gender lens to our holistic growth agenda, whether that’s pension reforms, industrial strategy, sustainability or the AI revolution.
Who do you look up to, and why?
I love learning from people who are different from me and challenge the way I think about things and the way I do them – entrepreneurs in particular have a self-confidence and attitude to risk-taking that I hugely admire and my co-Chair, Debbie Wosskow, has that in spades.
Hannah Bernard is Head of Business Banking at Barclays and Co-Chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce.
