A new women-led business angel investment syndicate has been launched in a bid to encourage more women to invest while supporting female entrepreneurs who often get underfunded. The syndicate sees more than 30 of Wales’ most successful female business leaders unite to form Women Angels of Wales (WAW).
Facilitated by the Development Bank of Wales and Angels Invest Wales, it has been established to help support women in the early-stage investment community in Wales. As such it will invest equity into companies with female founders or co-founders.
As a syndicate, all deals will have access to the £8m Wales Angel Co-investment Fund which provides loans and equity up to £250,000 to investors looking for co-investment. However, there will be no predetermined group pot for the syndicate nor will it be limited by deal size.
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It will be led by lead investor Jill Jones, a ESRC-funded PhD student at Cardiff University Business School, who is an experienced business angel investor and passionate supporter of women in entrepreneurship.
Other members of WAW include:
Ellen Donovan, an experienced non-executive director and board member of the Welsh Government and a former board executive director of a FTSE 250 company.
Kate Methuen-Ley, an experienced non-executive director, committee member and executive director. She spent five years building a JV with a well-known retailer in Wales and Bristol to 120 team members and over £5m annual turnover.
Sian Lloyd, freelance presenter and broadcaster who has spent the last 25 years presenting news, current affairs and factual programmes both in Wales and across the UK along with work for independent media companies.
Helen Molyneux, who set-up and established NewLaw Legal before selling to a PLC. She is a well-regarded non-executive director, a founder of the Monumental Welsh Woman project and a trustee of the Institute of Welsh Affairs.
Jackie Royall, chair, non-executive director, business mentor and investor. Her career began in finance and progressed to CEO and vice president in manufacturing. She has run her own business scaling consultancy and was a turnaround practitioner for 16 years.
Speaking about the syndicate Ms Jones said women angels have a critical role to play in supporting female entrepreneurship.
“WAW is a women-led business angel investment syndicate, working in close partnership with the Development Bank of Wales and the wider business angel community in Wales and beyond,” she said.
“It is a friendly and supportive network which welcomes new and aspiring female investor members across Wales who are committed to supporting the Welsh economy and the creation of Welsh jobs.”
Ms Jones added: “By encouraging more women to become angel investors, we give them the opportunity to support the businesses that matter to them and to create new sources of capital for innovative businesses. We offer a supportive approach to women as investors and to women as founders who often get overlooked and underfunded.
“Importantly, this is not a networking forum. We want to enjoy using our collective experience, skills and resources to make a difference to our environment, our society and our economy by inspiring and investing in female-led businesses. Of course, angel investing does come with some risks but there are some great tax incentives that make it an attractive proposition.”
Angel Invest Wales’ investment manager Carol Hall said: “We need to encourage more women to invest so building the angel ecosystem in Wales is a priority for us.
“WAW is a syndicate of exceptionally talented and successful women business angels who are ambitious, agile and accessible. We know that angel investment works best when investors work together in syndicates to pool skills, share knowledge and balance risk. It generates more firepower, particularly as we can then use our equity co-investment fund to leverage syndicated deals.”
The launch of the syndicate in Wales comes as a new report by the UK Business Angels Association found that women remain a minority in angel investment - despite female angel investors having helped drive more than £2bn of investment in companies across the UK in the past decade. This has a direct impact as women are much more likely to invest in female-founded companies.
Jenny Tooth OBE, executive chair of the UK Business Angels Association and Co-Chair of the Women Angel Investment Task Force, said: “Angel investment is an important element of equity finance for entrepreneurs at the start of their business growth journey, brining not only vital funding, but also business experience, advice, support and connections.
“However, the proportion of women angel investors is low and this limits the pool of equity capital available to support entrepreneurial growth.”
She added: “Our research and experience has shown that growing the number of women angels will directly increase the level of investment in female entrepreneurs. To address this, we have launched the Women backing Women Campaign across the UK regions and Nations. We need syndicates like WAW to share the benefits of angel investing and help empower more women to bring their finance and experience to proactively back female founders.”
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