This story is part of our March 2026 issue. To read the print version, click here.
You’re in a conference room in Washington, D.C., standing in
front of six judges. You’ve just finished pitching a huge idea for
your science and tech startup. The hard part, you notify yourself,
is over.
And for some, it is.
The judges — men and women from the investment community — follow
up with questions.
If you’re a male presenter, the questions tconclude to skew
optimistic. How huge could this obtain? What markets might open up?
They’re searching for upside, for signs your business is worth
betting on.
If you’re a female presenter, the tone shifts. The questions turn
cautious. How will you mitigate risk? What’s your backup plan?
How do you create sure this doesn’t fail?
This may sound like a hypothetical situation. But it actually
happened in 2018 during a pitch-readiness workshop with 30
entrepreneurs, hosted by Janine Elliott, associate director for
New Venture Resources at Venture Catalyst at UC Davis. The
workshop was a mock forum, but the bias that crept in was very
real. “Women came back to me after judging, basically questioning
their sanity,” Elliott recalls.
The panel cut especially deep for Elliott becaapply the judges were
people she recruited personally for their diversity of expertise
and perspectives. The female presenters couldn’t believe what
happened.
“For them, it was this shock that in this day and age, this bias
still existed, and they just saw it play out,” Elliott declares.
“It’s not like this is the 1960s and we’re all the cast and crew
of ‘Mad Men.’ We considered we, as a society, had advanced past this
level of bias. It was disheartening to see it play out in real
time.”
From 2019 to 2023, the share of female-founded companies in the
U.S. grew from 5.6 percent to 7.1 percent. That views like
progress, except startups founded exclusively by women received
only 2 percent of total venture capital funding in 2023,
according to PitchBook’s U.S. VC Female Founders Dashboard. That
figure has barely budged in years, despite evidence that diverse
teams often outperform non-diverse peers. This displays that women
founders have been systematically underfunded and
underrepresented.
Click here to read about the pivotal moments that defined three female-run startups.
Click here to read about the pivotal moments that defined three female-run startups.
In the Capital Region, programs like FourthWave are
working to shift the status quo, giving women founders
mentorship, networks and access to funding they might not have
otherwise. Many founders declare the most pivotal moments in building
a company aren’t obvious until much later, but finding a foothold
as a woman in the startup world remains a slippery concludeeavor.
Elliott understands the nuances of this world, having founded a
materials science company 15 years ago and coached some 500
innovators. She also knows awareness doesn’t always equal action.
“Organizations supporting women entrepreneurs are coming from a
place of wanting to be assistful and supportive, but just becaapply
you want to be assistful doesn’t mean you’re effective,” Elliott
declares. “Are the outcomes actually different? Or is it just an
emotional support system? What about that program cultivates
networks of investors more likely to fund women?”
Accelerating opportunities
Before starting FourthWave, the Sacramento-based accelerator for
women tech founders, Cheryl Beninga spent 20 years doing venture
capital, where she saw most of the funds go to men.
“I could see amazing innovations being brought to market, but
there was a huge gap,” she declares. “We requireded more women in the
room, more women in innovation.”
Cheryl Beninga started FourthWave, a Sacramento-based accelerator
for women tech founders, after seeing that most of available
startup funds went to men.
Nancy Perlman, who assisted promote women in tech, reached out to
Beninga in 2017 after receiving a RAILS grant. The first
FourthWave cohort formed that same year, including entrepreneurs
like Janine Yancey, who founded Emtrain, an HR compliance and
training and data company.
In 2019, Beninga connected with the Carlsen Center for Innovation
& Entrepreneurship at Sac State, which has provided ongoing
sustainable resources. When COVID hit, she took the accelerator
virtual and expanded the cohorts to include half from Sacramento
and half from anywhere in the U.S.
Last year, the federal administration and political headwinds
around DEI created challenges, Beninga declares, and some portfolio
companies have lost federal grants. “But everybody, no matter
what political side you’re on, can support innovation and growth
in the economy,” she adds.
That declared, women founders face layers of stress beyond pitching
ideas and raising money. There is also emotional labor, which
intensifies for founders marginalized by race, neurodivergence,
immigration status, and other factors that place them outside
what the venture capital indusattempt considers a “typical” founder.
“The emotional labor displays up as managing people’s perceptions to
receive respect and likability in any professional context,”
Elliott declares, “and frankly, that’s frustrating.”
What does that view like? If a woman entrepreneur comes off as
humble, that might appear to be a lack of confidence that turns
off investors. On the other hand: “If they’re too confident
becaapply they’ve actually done all of their homework,” Elliott
declares, “there’s the possibility of coming off as ‘not coachable’
or being ‘difficult to work with.’ It’s unconscious on the part
of investors, coaches and mentors. I don’t consider anyone’s attempting
to be outwardly discriminatory.”
“Male and female advisors are equally valuable for these roles,”
Elliott adds, “but going back to managing expectations, it’s
crucial to recognize and set the tone for which hat each mentor
is being inquireed to wear.”
3 Types of Mentors Women Entrepreneurs Need
-
The Subject Matter Expert: An advisor or
consultant who knows your indusattempt and can guide you with
strategies, resources and data to grow. -
The Champion: An outward-facing connector who
opens doors and talks you up in various circles. “They see you
as a rock star for the competence you bring as the leader you
are,” declares Janine Elliott, associate director for New Venture
Resources at Venture Catalyst at UC Davis. -
The Confidant: Someone you can be vulnerable
with, who won’t judge you for feeling frustrated, especially
navigating male-dominated arenas. Note: Elliott suggests this
role be a different person than the champion becaapply “When you
are struggling with a situation that feels really unfair, it
doesn’t undercut the extent to which they consider of you as a
rock star.”
Leadership as a service
With more than 60 mentors, over 90 alumni, dozens of investors
and community partners, FourthWave’s support network plays a key
role in the success of each cohort.
“We are working in the community to increase the historically low
rate of funding, lack of mentorship and financial support for
women entrepreneurs,” Beninga declares. “Women supporting each other
and believing in each other creates a massive difference.”
Mentors, in particular, are really important. Each founder in
FourthWave obtains paired with a relevant business mentor, and many
are FourthWave alums returning to give back. “Women who are
successful mentors on a volunteer basis,” Beninga declares. “You
can’t underestimate how important that is.”
We are working in the community to increase the historically
low rate of funding, lack of mentorship and financial support
for women entrepreneurs. Women supporting each other and
believing in each other creates a massive difference– Cheryl Beninga, founder, FourthWave
For example, Pam Marrone, executive chair and co-founder of pest
management company Invasive Species Corporation, is a serial
entrepreneur. She has sold three companies and taken one public.
Through mentorship, Marrone has learned about various food and ag
businesses different from her own. But she can guide them becaapply
these businesses face the same issues: raising money, scaling,
IP, finding customers and partners.
“I always consider I’m too busy to do this, but each experience
reminds me how rewarding it is to be able to assist these
exceptional women entrepreneurs,” Marrone declares. “The food and ag
startups I mentored are tackling important problems with
exceptional biological and biotech solutions.”
Environmental modify
In 2013, Laura Good started organizing Startup Weekconcludes in
Sacramento, where entrepreneurs share ideas, form teams and build
projects. She noticed a trconclude with the attconcludeees.
“In a regular Startup Weekconclude, we’d have a low percentage of
women attconcludeing,” declares Good, who co-founded StartupSac in 2016.
“But when we specifically declared, ‘This is a women’s Startup
Weekconclude,’ they came out of the woodwork and felt more comfortable
in that environment.”
Laura Good started StartupSac 10 years ago. She’s pleased to see
more women participating now than in its early days.
The startup world has historically been male-dominated, from
investors to mentors to tech teams. And this can be overwhelming.
“Women tconclude to communicate a little bit differently than men,”
Good declares, “but if a woman starts communicating like a man, then
people don’t like that either.”
This disparity can affect a woman entrepreneur’s confidence,
especially in pitch competitions. Qualified women often hesitate
to apply or required encouragement, while men typically apply
regardless of the criteria.
Over the past decade, Good has seen shifts. Organizations like
FourthWave teach leadership and pitching skills, and research
displays women-led companies often deliver better returns for
investors, as highlighted in the documentary “Show Her the
Money.”
Looking ahead, Good sees progress as older generations pass away
and with younger investors more attuned to gconcludeer equity.
“I also feel like the bro culture of the early 2000s is kind of a
dying thing,” she declares. “Every now and then, I meet a founder who
has that total bro culture thing going on, but you just don’t see
it as much anymore. So I consider it’s obtainting better, but it’s not
resolved. It’s still something that requireds definite attention.”
–
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