CrowdBnk Hosts Joint Event with 85 Broads

Women owned ventures are less likely to receive funding, with only 7 percent of venture capital and 24 percent of angel funding going to women-led businesses. Crowdfunding has been touted as a potential solution for the funding gap. On crowdfunding platforms such as Indiegogo, 47% of projects that reach their funding goal are female-led.

“"The current numbers show us that female entrepreneurs and angel investors are vastly outnumbered, but that doesn't have to be the case going forward. Crowdfunding is an emerging platform for democratizing funding allocation and one that can provide women with greater flexibility in our long-term careers,” says Grace Maa, co-President of the London Chapter of 85 Broads, a global women's network whose mission is to generate exceptional professional and social value to its members.

On February 26th, the London Chapter of 85 Broads hosted an event on “What You Need To Know About Crowdfunding.” The discussion was led by LBS alum (SEMBA2010) Ayan Mitra, Founder and CEO of CrowdBnk. Also on the panel were CrowdBnk entrepreneurs Ben O'Brien of Sourced Market (who recently raised £750K on CrowdBnk), Marco Ottolini, the CEO of Styloola, and Rebecca Ferguson, Partner at Davenport Lyons. The panel was moderated by Grace Maa

“85 Broads comprise a diverse network of women, many of whom are showing increased interest in areas of alternative finance like crowd funding. They have held events on it in the past were keen to collaborate with us to actually get under the skin of what the experience is like to raise on a digital platform; hence half the panel guests were entrepreneurs who have collaborated with us,” says Daniel Ross, Head of Investor Relations at CrowdBnk.

“Collaborating with 85 Broads was a valuable experience as it exposed CrowdBnk to a new and dynamic network of female entrepreneurs, investors and professionals; many of whom contributed actively to a lively evening of discussion on the future challenges that we face. We even had a couple of the women seeking to get involved with the business, which was exciting. Making those kind of unexpected connections, meeting people who can make a fresh contribution to your business make such evenings worthwhile,” says Ross.