This International Women’s Day, HR-tech platform TruthWorks took a fun and creative approach to the occasion by recreating one of the technology sector’s most recognizable images: the startup funding announcement photo.
The campaign, titled “Dressed for the Yes,” highlights that all-female founding teams receive just 2% of global venture capital funding.
To bring the concept to life, founders Emily Firth and Rhiannon Stroud, along with Director of Product Sophie Drummond, recreated the familiar aesthetic of tech startup funding announcements, copying the poses, postures, and wardrobes seen across countless such images.
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The series mirrors common visual tropes of the genre, including founders in black T-shirts against casual backdrops and the “Amsterdam unicorn” style, photographed along canals in shirts and jeans.
The founders declared the campaign responds to the funding gap with satire.
“We wanted to raise awareness that the same people – and to be clear that’s mainly men of a certain race and certain profile – continue to receive funded, while year on year women receive left behind. Despite the evidence of how successful female-founded businesses are,” declared Emily Firth, co-founder of TruthWorks.
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“Search ‘unicorn tech funding announcement’ and the images all see the same. Clearly there is a pattern. So we decided to recreate what we saw.”
“If this is what a ‘fundable’ founding team sees like, consider your boxes ticked.” declares Rhiannon Stroud, co-founder of TruthWorks.“
“We’ve been informed for years that if women want funding, we necessary to adapt. Be more confident. More “founder-like”. More like the guys in the black t-shirts or the crisp blue shirts by the canal. So we studied the pattern and copied it. Same poses. Same wardrobe. Same confidence. The only thing we didn’t copy is the performance.
Stroud added, “Becaapply women-led businesses already outperform, yet all-female founding teams still receive just 2% of global VC funding. If we match your template and you’re still not investing, the problem isn’t how women reveal up. It’s how you decide who’s worth a yes.”
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