Blackbird and the problem of investing in women

Earlier this week, Blackbird issued its second update about how the firm invested in women and non-binary founders. This blog was put out by Alex Gifford, the chief of staff of investments, who wanted to discuss the firm’s “learnings” around gender equality.

Gifford revealed that since Blackbird had started investing from its new fund in June last year, the firm had invested in 22 companies, with 23 per cent of the start-ups with a female or non-binary co-founder. Is that supposed to be ... good?

Back in May in an update authored by the company’s Kate Glazebrook and Nick Crocker, Blackbird revealed that 22 per cent of the companies the firm had invested in over the past decade had at least one woman founder. That’s Blackbird hardly shifting the dial in 10 years.

In fact, things might be getting worse. Gifford suggested one of the north star metrics of Blackbird’s gender equality strategy was how many women came to face the firm’s investment committee (at which start-ups make the final pitch for the Blackbird cheque).

The firm’s internal goal is to have 40 per cent of companies in that category represented by a woman. Gifford revealed from June last year to the present, 27.5 per cent of companies fulfilled the criteria.

Back to that May update, Glazebrook/Crocker said the firm had “close to 40 per cent” of the companies who faced the final table do so with a female co-founder. The FY24 stats are apparently tracking better.

Tabulating these numbers over different periods means it can be hard to get apples-to-apples comparisons. But maybe keeping things vague is all part of the strategy.

Undeniable is that Blackbird’s big talk about increasing gender equality in investment has gone absolutely nowhere for years.

“Progress on this front doesn’t move in a straight line and it can be frustratingly slow,” a Blackbird spokeswoman said in a statement. “There is still a lot of work to be done and we don’t shy away from that.”

See, progress is hard. It’s not just us. It’s an industry-wide problem. But Blackbird’s “straight line” progress is horizontal. We’re supposed to be in the hockey-stick business!

In October, Kristin Hunter, another VC, pointed out in SmartCompany that Blackbird’s “investor notes” announcements showed the firm had invested in seven Australian companies in a row that had all-male founders since making a commitment to invest in “more female founders”. Last week, SmartCompany noted the list had grown to 11.

The Blackbird spokeswoman said the firm didn’t control when a start-up announced its funding round. To be honest, we doubt that. They said there were others, involving women, which would eventually be made public.

Regardless, three or four consecutive all-fellas funding announcements might seem like a coincidence. It’s when you get past double digits that the problem might be coming from inside your house.