If you are a female entrepreneur, you may have left corporate life partly to escape the challenges facing women as they push forward in their careers.  And if you are working with entrepreneurs as an Investor, Advisory Board member or Accelerator, you may think these issues are not impacting your team.  Unfortunately you are wrong.

The challenges women face in the corporate world still have a major impact on the start-up world because these are the very companies you are pitching to and trying to raise money from.  Given only 2% of VC funding went to female-led companies in 2017 it is clear the uphill battle continues.* 

All the parties in the start-up ecosystem need to come together around this issue so everyone can reap the benefits of investing in women leaders.  Here are a few places to start:

1. Develop female entrepreneur peer and mentoring groups

2. Leverage external women's networks for support, resources and professional development

3. Participate in unconscious bias training together as a start-up community

4. Develop gender-blind recruiting and evaluation practices to increase diversity in investments, teams and talent

5. Leverage coaches and mentors to help with all of the above

*Source: PitchBook

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