Kicking off the European Network of Gender-Conscious Investors in Paris – insights from the WomenINvestEU Opening Breakfast and panel at Hello Tomorrow

The WomenINvestEU project was in Paris last week to officially launch the activities of the European Network of Gender-Conscious Investors with its Opening Breakfast, on 14 March. Later that morning, the project was introduced at the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit, at a panel in which leading investors and Steering Group members gave an insightful talk on Empowering Women in Finance. Discover the biggest highlights of the morning and access materials from the presentations in our article.
 

Some food for thought on the state of 
gender-conscious investing
 

The WomenINvestEU Opening Breakfast brought 79 participants, including leading VCs, Angel Investors, LPs and other key players together for a full morning of exchanges and creating meaningful connections across the European gender-focused investment ecosystem. The event was held at the premises of consortium member Bpifrance in Paris, at a strategic moment, with Hello Tomorrow’s Global Summit bringing industry leaders, entrepreneurs and investors to the city.

The welcoming words were courtesy of the European Commission’s Ulla Hudina, from the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), as well as consortium representatives Gilles le Cocguen, Head of EuroQuity-Bpifrance, Jenny Tooth, Vice-President for Diversity at Business Angels Europe and Chair at UK Business Angels Association and Ricardo Greenfield, Managing Partner at EurA Innovation Ecosystems. Greenfield also presented the project’s goals and efforts to address the gender gap for women-led companies across Europe. 

Agata Leliwa Nowicka, Founder of Female Foundry, gave the audience a look into the current trends and influences in women-led investments.  Drawing on data from the Female Innovation Index, Europe’s largest report on the funnel of innovation and funding driven by female entrepreneurs, Agata shared key insights on what motivates female founders to start their own companies, on the areas in which they tend to start businesses and on how successful they are at raising VC funding.
 

Crucially, the numbers in the report show that female-founded companies are equally successful at raising funding when compared to the overall company population. Moreover, the 12% decline in venture capital invested into female companies from 2023 to 2024 mirrors the 11% decrease in the venture capital investment in all European companies. 
 

Together, in 2024, the 1196 European female-founded companies covered by the report raised a total of EUR 5.76B.

Download the event's presentation, including Agata's slides here.

Afterwards, it was time to discuss Awareness Raising Strategies with Andreea Saia, Venture Partner at WIT Angels Club, Florence Richardson, Co-founder at WinEquity, and Benedicte Denieul, Board Member at Angels Santé. Audra Shallal, Vice President at Corenvest, moderated the session. This talk focused on how to raise awareness on the potential of backing women-led companies within the investment community.

Natacha Brami, investor at SISTAFUND, Laura Medji, General Partner at The Blueprint VC, and Angela Holter, Founding Partner and Chair of the Board at WIN, joined a roundtable in which they shared invaluable insights about their experiences building VC funds investing in gender-balanced teams. The speakers discussed the role and importance of diversity within investment teams, including in their decision-making process and likelihood of backing more diverse companies as well. The CEO at ALW Finance & Innovation, Anne Lebreton-Wolf, moderated the session.
 

To wrap up the event, participants got to network, exchange insights on the morning’s discussions and enjoy the rest of their breakfast while creating connections with other key players advancing gender-conscious investing across Europe.
 

Empowering Women in Finance at Hello 
Tomorrow’s Global Summit

Just after wrapping up the Opening Breakfast, WomenINvestEU also organized a panel at Hello Tomorrow’s Global Summit. This talk focused on the topic of empowering and inspiring women in finance, highlighting the introduction of the WomenINvestEU network as a gender-conscious initiative.

The panel included Ulla Hudina, from European Commission’s DG GROW, Mailys Ferrere, Investment Director at Bpifrance, Céline Lévy, Investment Manager at the European Investment Fund, Deepali Nangia, Partner at Speedinvest. The talk was moderated by Agnieszka Wojdyr, from the European Commission’s DG GROW.
 

Throughout the conversation, all speakers emphasized that there is a real business case for supporting women-led companies, highlighting the need to have more women “writing the cheques” and investing in female founders.
 

“There are now lots of junior women in VC, but the trickle-up effect is very small. (…) And if that trickle-up effect doesn’t happen, the trickle down into female-founders is less likely to happen”, pointed out Deepali Nangia.
 

“There are positive signals, we just need to follow-through, I think, with more and more data collection, not only on money trickling through to women entrepreneurs but also on performance. (…) In the world that we are currently living in, and looking at friends over the Atlantic, we need to convince with data rather than persuade with feelings”, suggested Lévy.

Watch the full recording of the panel here.

WomenINvestEU is proud to have hosted these activities and to have counted on the insights of these members of the European Network of Gender-Conscious Investors. Find out more about our goals and membership criteria here and submit our Call for Expressions of Interest if you want to become a part of the network.