Improving diversity in venture capital

Venture capital (VC) investment plays a critical role in starting and scaling innovative companies. The UK’s VC landscape is a success story, and the UK has the largest VC market in Europe, larger than France and Germany combined. However, this overall growth in UK VC investment masks a wider issue in the market: the investment has been heavily skewed toward groups with common characteristics. There has been some progress over time, but diversity in VC investment remains extremely low and there are underlying problems that are specific or more acute for underserved founders including in terms of gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background.

SQW recently worked in partnership with the British Business Bank to investigate what works for improving diversity in VC (read more here). Joining podcast host Joe Duggett to discuss this study and the issue of diversity in VC are Osman Anwar and Imogen Sprackling. The podcast explores:

  • The nature and scale of issues facing the VC market in terms of diversity
  • The evidence-based actions that can and should be adopted by UK VC firms to address issues of diversity
  • Key recommendations and reflections of interest to wider actors across the finance landscape.

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