Women lead 35% of startups in Latin America, but still face challenges

One of the effects of the pandemic is technological progress, especially in the fintech sector, since since the crisis began to the present, Mexico went from having 200 fintechs to 500, a large part of which is led by women. . Only at the Latin American level, 35% of fintech companies have a woman as founder, revealing data from TwelveHundred.

Adriana Tortajada, Managing Partner of TwelveHundred, explained that more and more women are venturing into and believing in technological sectors and proof of this is that in Latin America, 35% of startups have a female founder, a percentage that exceeds the global average which is 7%, which reflects the talent of Latin America and the importance of its contribution to the sector.

During Open Finance 2020, in its 2022 edition, she explained that women are playing a crucial role in the development of the system, since with their talent, capacity and different ways of thinking and conceiving ideas, they can create new business opportunitieswhich has encouraged new products that serve different sectors of the population.

For this reason, now women occupy more leadership positions, are involved in making crucial decisions for the organization and give a new face to the sector; however, the path is not easy.

The challenges

Although the presence of women in entrepreneurship is growing, especially in the technological field, they still face many challenges to start and enhance your project.

The first challenge begins in education, since only four out of 10 women complete a university degree, in addition to the fact that the majority are inclined towards social and humanitarian careers, leaving those in science, mathematics and engineering (STEM, for its acronym in English) ultimately.

On average, only 28% of the Mexican studies engineering careers, according to Unesco data. In 2021, of the 9 million women graduated from university level, only 13.5% he did it in STEM majors.

“The number of women who study a science and technology career only reaches 13% of the total enrollment of the universities; It is a very small number that should worry us and occupy us, because the greater the diversity, the gap narrows,” said Erika Quezada, co-founder of Finvero.

The second challenge is the resources to carry out their idea, where it is usually complicated when requesting financing or raising investment, since access is usually more limited and there is inequality in the amounts granted between women and men.

The third challenge is cultural stereotypeswhere they are conceived more in health and care sectors as well as social or administrative environments, and few in the technological innovation sector, which for years has been dominated by men.

Part of the stereotypes they suffer are extended to the family care, children (if they have them) and home care obligations.

“Those of us who are already part of the ecosystem are committed to promoting suitable spaces for othersbecause not only innovative women are incorporated, but multifaceted people who are in charge of a home, who are the pillars of a family and most of them need minimum conditions to develop”, explained Marlene Garayzar, co-founder of Stori.

A behavior that has been observed in women entrepreneurs is that most decide to do it in Collaboration with your romantic partners (mainly husbands or boyfriends) who in the case of 24% become co-founders, while in 20% it occurs with close friends, 10% with another woman and only 8% do it alone, indicates the Report on women leaders of startups in Latin America, prepared by Platzi.

The sectors in which they are focusing the most are: fintech and insurtech, e-commerce, retail and business services. Another important point is that in more than 50% of cases it is born to solve a problem set out in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

rising unicorns

Proof of the importance of female talent in the fintech sector is that unicorn births led by women have been registered around the world.

An example of this is Stori, which last July became the ninth unicorn Mexican after it received an investment round for 50 million dollars in equity and 100 million in debt, with which it obtained a valuation of 1.2 billion dollars.

For fintech, the main objective is promote financial inclusion through Mastercard credit cards for people with or without credit history problems.

Another example of a unicorn is Habi, in Colombia, which was founded by Sebastián Noguera and the American Brynne McNulty Rojas with the aim of helping sell homes fast and safe. In May of that year, they achieved a round of investment of 200 million dollars with which they managed to become a unicorn.

At the same time there is Silvina Moschini, president and founder of Transparent Business who in 2020 became a unicorn with her digital work platform and remote talent. With this, she was the first woman in Latin America to become a unicorn.

Finally, there is Kavak, which, together with its founders Loreanne García, Carlos García Ottati and Roger Laughtlin, achieved unicorn status in 2020.

“It has been proven that a diverse team generates more profitability, productivity, and roles are combined. It is important that we all take on the task that in the financial world we can be more inclusive to continue transforming and innovating the ecosystem”, concluded Adriana Tortajada.