Dell has partnered with Crunchbase and IHS Markit to release the annual Dell Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) Index. This is the only global study rating the ability of cities to attract and support women entrepreneurs. For the first time, the San Francisco Bay Area surpassed New York for the number one spot in the rankings.
San Francisco first in Capital and Tech
Dell ranked 50 cities based on five characteristics: Markets, Talent, Capital, Culture, and Technology. Within these five characteristics, Dell and IHS Markit studied 71 different indicators, 45 of which had a gender-based component.
San Francisco ranks first overall in the areas of Capital and Tech, and has proven to be one of the best places for women entrepreneurs to receive funding. San Francisco, New York, and London all ranked in the top 10 for all five characteristics.
Read more about Top San Francisco Bay Area Startups with Female Founders.
Global progress in the right direction
Compared to 2017, all 50 cities made progress in their overall index score. The number of cities in each continent is as follows: North America (18), Asia (14), Europe (12), Australia (2), Africa (2), South America (2). While North America witnessed the most improvement overall, Latin America and Europe saw the highest percentage of their cities move up in the rankings. Mexico City experienced the greatest improvement, moving from #45 in the 2017 rankings to #29 this year.
Plenty of room for growth
Although all cities have made progress, the #1 Bay Area scored only 63.7 points out of a total possible 100. This confirms that we still have a long way to go in terms of supporting women entrepreneurs. Funding and capital proves to be an area with high potential for improvement. The chart below represents funding for women entrepreneurs in the top 10 cities and the progression from 2017 to 2019. While this chart shows progress has been made to funnel more resources to women entrepreneurs, there is still a large disparity between men and women entrepreneurs receiving funding.
“Five percent of venture dollars globally have gone to female-founded teams in the last five years. In contrast, male founders have raised 86 percent of venture dollars. Male and female co-founded teams have raised 9 percent of venture dollars. Over this 5 year period, Crunchbase has seen increases in both amounts and percentages invested in female founders. However, we still have a ways to go to reach the All Raise goal of 25 percent of funding going to companies with at least one female founder.” – Gené Teare, Strategic Research at Crunchbase
In addition to funding, there are plenty of areas where cities still need to focus efforts. The Index results found a few common barriers, globally:
- High-cost of living
- Low representation of women in leadership roles
- Lack of government led policies that support women entrepreneurs
- Lack of funding
The Methodology
In order to assess all 71 indicators that factored into the 5 ranking characteristics, Dell and IHS Markit gathered data from a myriad of different source types. Crunchbase contributed data for several key indicators including the gender of partners at VC firms, gender of founders of funded businesses, and value of VC funds, among others.
Crunchbase is excited to partner with an organization committed to providing resources and support to female entrepreneurs. The Dell WE Cities Index provides policy-makers the research needed to make better-informed decisions that will ultimately help support women in business.
