Indiegogo launches initiative to support female-led crowdfunding campaigns

Crowdfunding platform Indiegogo has announced a year-long initiative to champion diversity in entrepreneurship by giving extra support to female-led funding on its platform.

Launched to coincide with International Women’s Day today, the initiative will run in collaboration with Girls in Tech UK, Trep Life, Lipstick & Politics, and Blooming Founders UK, until March 2017 and intends to remove the “barriers to funding”.

As part of the programme, the crowdfunding site will host events focused on supporting female entrepreneurs to get their ideas off the ground and will give women that launch crowdfunding campaigns the chance to apply for dedicated mentoring.

The announcement follows research by UC Berkeley which, after analysing 9,900 Indiegogo campaigns, found that women typically secure more investment than men through crowdfunding.

The research reported that the crowd were more likely to back female-led campaigns because of the use of “more positive, inclusive language” in their pitches which helped investors connect “more deeply with them”.

Indiegogo co-founder Danae Ringelmann said of the programme:

“Because it’s a completely open platform Indiegogo has broken down gender inequalities and removed bias from the funding equation. We’re really proud of building a platform where all ideas are welcome and have a chance to thrive.”

Mira Veda, founder and Editor-in-Chief of programme partner Lipstick & Politics, added:

“It’s no secret that women still face a multitude of challenges when it comes to representation in leadership. As of 2015, there are 9.4 million women owned businesses, yet support and career advancement is negligible. Lipstick & Politics is excited to partner with Indiegogo and support women in entrepreneurship through their initiative.”