With International Women’s Month lurking, Layla made some stops at the top events in Cairo discussing women’s topics. On the 2nd of March, we made a stop at Consoleya, in Downtown Cairo, where the 2nd Women Meet-up took place. The second meet-up discussed funding in Egypt with a gender lens. The Panel was moderated by Rula El Kaliouby, founder of Intuition Consultancy. As for the panel, it consisted of a line-up of accomplished investors & business leaders:

• Ola Al Dajani -  Steering Committee Member, Tiye Angels, Egypt’s 1st women’s Angel Investment Network

• Minoush Abdel Meguid -  Founding Partner of Mezzan

• Hany Assaad - Managing Director of Avanz Capital Egypt

• Amal Enan - Managing Partner at Lotus Capital

• Tamer Azer - Partner at Shorooq Partners

Here’s Layla's rundown on the eye-opening event.

According to Ola Al Dajani, Steering Committee Member at Tiye Angels, in her keynote speech, the gender investment gap is not only limited to Egypt but worldwide, and it is there on decision tables with structural biases. Women founders face obstacles to raising funds, let alone getting an investor on board.

Here’s a piece of quick statistical evidence she presented: out of the 600+ startups that got funds last year in the MENA region, 45 only were founded by women, which is less than 8%. Al Dajani has presented her lived experience since she is a leading committee member of the 1st women’s Angel Investment Network.

‘An angel investor: an investor who provides resources for a business (usually a start-up) in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors usually support start-ups at the first stages.’

The structured bias mostly stems from the affirmation bias. We invest in things we know and are sure will return with profit. Most women start businesses with what they are familiar with; fashion, health, education. Those fields are not a safe space for male investors’ money, they are not comfortable putting money in fields they do not know themselves, and it would be even harder to trust a woman with his lack of knowledge.

When questioned about his efforts to combat the gender disparity in the business sector, Hany Assad, managing director at Avanz Capital, revealed that his company is adamant about maintaining equal women-men work distribution throughout the growth of his business. Hany stated that approx. 69 trillion dollars are currently being poured into investments across the world, 98.7% of which are being managed by men.

Hany said that the discrepancies between men and women in the business world boil down to basic, primitive physiology. Men have always been tasked with hunting, a single-minded focus on their quest, whereas women foraged while critically attuned to their surroundings. But the world can’t operate in just lateral or medial terms; teams without diversity often yield unoriginal ideas, and a compositional change might just be the answer.

According to Hany, if you invest in a more diverse fund management team, the performance of that fund goes up by 20%. That is not an insignificant figure. From a business perspective, it’s more meritful to have a gender-diverse team.

On the outside, it may seem like we’re closing the gender disparity gap–a notion that’s fuelled by women rapidly filling seats in parliament. However, when it comes to economic participation, we are lagging behind. We’ve moved up a mere three notches on the World Economic Gender Gap Index, currently ranked at 129. Gender Lens funds currently looking at Egypt represent 5% of 4.8 billion funds directed towards supporting women.

Seeing the participatory gap and the systematic bias, Amal Enan, Managing Partner at Lotus Capital, decided to build a gender-smart investments company. Lotus Capital was founded to give women more access to the market. Amal said that despite the steady growth in technology, very few women are working in that sector.

Amal confirmed that women struggle with funding their businesses and finding job opportunities in growing companies. She stated that investors view ambitious men and ambitious women differently. Lotus Capital aims to change investors’ minds and shift the conversation by showing the growth resulting from female-owned or led companies.

Having experienced the support of her peers and mentors, Amal felt the need to offer the same courtesy to other women. She believed that she was privileged with her education, work experience, and environment, and that she should use these privileges wisely. Amal decided to meet ambitious and talented women in the El Mansoura, Asyut, and other governorates whose incredible ideas only awaited financing.

Concerning privilege, Hany stated, “Finance is the most democratizing process we have.” Going above and beyond for the underprivileged is worthwhile, and getting to know the talented people that can’t showcase their genius requires curiosity, patience, and a great deal of listening.

Affirming Amal’s words, Tamer Azer, partner at Shorooq Partners, attested that women spend a long time trying to raise funds for their businesses. “If you’re a female founder who’s been trying to raise 400,000$ for the last two and a half years, you’re way behind your cohort of peers. If we facilitate the process for women, we would be eliminating a huge part of the problem.” Azer stated that investors need to be intentionally aware of their own biases that exacerbate the injustices women experience.