A lot of people have tried to address tech's gender gap, but few have come at it in the way that Katherine Hague, founder of Toronto-based Shoplocket, has.
After selling her company last year to PCH International, an Irish multi-national that assists companies with custom manufacturing, Hague decided to use the windfall from the sale to invest in early stage startups—an angel investor, in the parlance of the industry.
One of the first startups she put money into was CareGuide, another local startup.
"At the time there were 70 investors in the company’s latest round and before we (Hague and her longtime friend and Ladies Learning Code founder Heather Payne) invested in them only one investor was a woman," says Hague. "We looked at those numbers and thought it was absolutely crazy. I started talking to a number of woman who had expressed interest in angel investing and I tried to get at the reasons why they hadn’t done it."
"It turns out that there a lot of misconceptions," she adds. "Either around the types of people that should invest, or how expensive and hard it is."
To that end, she and several of her colleagues from PCH have launched Female Funders, a new initiative that aims to lay out exactly what's involved in angel investing. For instance, according to the group's website, investments in early-stage companies typically range from $10,000 to $50,000, but can often be as little as $1,000. It is, as the site says, often less than the cost of a vacation for most people.
It's Hague's belief that more female investors will lead to more female-led companies being funded. To start, she wants to get 1,000 woman to commit to funding their first company this year.
Since launching last Thursday, more than 500 woman have already said they'll answer that call. Now Hague and her team are busy preparing to send out a getting started guide to help them on that road.
"It will help change the ratio in all aspects of venture, and that’s really what I’m excited about," she says. "This is the way that we’re trying to spark that change, but I think it has waves of impact across all aspects of the industry."