Businesswomen in the North East are set to benefit from a multimillion-pound investment trust that aims to rebalance the bias in the venture capital industry towards all-male founding teams.
Newcastle entrepreneur Sophie Milliken, founder and CEO of business support agency Moja, has recently been appointed to the board of the Funding Focus Investment Trust plc, an organisation which is on a mission to level the playing field that female entrepreneurs face when raising capital.
Ms Milliken become involved with the London-based trust after discovering huge disparity in the amount ploughed into companies launched by men compared to women. According to research by Pitchbook in March, the share of funding to mixed gender teams fell from 14.6% in 2020 to 13.6% in 2021, and the share to all-female teams collapsed from 2.4% to just 1% of the total.
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The trust is now in the process of seeking a London Stock Exchange listing amid moves to launch a potential £100m trust fund this July, giving public investors the chance to join cornerstone investors who are injecting the bulk of the cash.
It has filed an Early Notification of Listing with the London Stock Exchange, and will offer investors access to businesses it has identified as high growth businesses across the UK and Europe, led by entrepreneurs who identify as female and/or non-white ethnicity.
The trust aims to make 15 to 20 investments in its first year, averaging £2m but potentially ploughing in much more. Around 10% of the fund will be available to start-ups which will get smaller amounts.
A number of key cities around the UK have been selected as being focal points for the trust, including Newcastle thanks to Ms Milliken’s involvement.
The board is chaired by Shalini Khemka, founder and CEO of E2E and business advisory board member to the Mayor of London. Other non-executive directors are Julie Pomeroy, Fran Boorman and Mehmuda Mian. The executive directors and founders are CEO David B Horne and CIO John P de Blocq van Kuffeler.
Ms Milliken said: “We’re looking to launch the trust on the Stock Market in the next few months, which is even more exciting. There’s quite a few things we still need to go through before we can do that but when I was going for the role one of my themes was being from Newcastle and the North and how important it is that we didn’t just have a board of London people in London.
“Newcastle is one of the cities we’ll focus on, which is fab because we absolutely need it. We’ve got some amazing entrepreneurs who would benefit from the fund.
“The reason it exists in the first place is if you do any kind of research into investment funding it’s absolutely shocking how bad it is – I only came across it while doing some research for my PhD proposal in female entrepreneurship, which starts this year at Durham. I was totally horrified - for every £1 of investment funding only 1p goes to female founders, and 89p goes to all male teams.”
Early plans will involve speaking to established entrepreneurs in the region looking for capital as well as guidance. A board meeting is also due to be held in Newcastle later this year.
Ms Milliken first became aware of the fund after venting her anger over funding disparities on LinkedIn.
After being introduced to CEO Mr Horne, she was determined to play a part in the trust fund, and was appointed as non-executive director following a lengthy interview process.
Ms Milliken said: “There’s so much work that needs to done it’s quite depressing. But it’s great that the guys who have set up the fund recognised it and have decided to do something positive and proactive about it.”
Mr Horne said: “We believe that many businesses do not lack vision or potential, they just lack access to appropriate capital and governance to help them realise their growth potential. Our role is to identify and support these visionary and innovative entrepreneurs and their companies through equity funding to fully realise their potential.”
