The incorporation of women into the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spain and around the world is progressing slowly. The percentage of Spanish startups founded exclusively by women has grown by 6% to 8% in 2023, while mixed founding teams drop from 35% to 33%, according to data from the latest edition of the Entrepreneurship Map, carried out by South Summit and IE University.
What remains unchanged is the total number of female entrepreneurs in our country: 20% of all Spanish entrepreneurs are women compared to 80% of men, a proportion that has not changed in the last ten years.
On the other hand, leadership positions continue to be predominantly occupied by men, even in startups with a greater female presence. In this sense, 28% of startups founded solely by women have a male CEO, while the proportion rises to 100% if we talk about startups with male founders. Furthermore, only 19% of startups with a mixed founding team are led by women.
Regarding the profile of the entrepreneur, her high training stands out, more complete than that of men, since 15% of them have a doctorate when undertaking compared to 13% of them, and 73% of women entrepreneurs in Spain have with a master’s degree compared to 64% of entrepreneurs. Furthermore, Spanish female entrepreneurs are better trained than in the rest of the regions analyzed, where the figures for entrepreneurship with a master’s degree and doctorate are in favor of men.
Regarding the proportion of men and women in management positions, the gap between traditionally female and male positions is still present. Thus, the most technical positions such as CTO continue to be predominantly male (18% of male entrepreneurs who occupy this position compared to 5% of female entrepreneurs), while Positions related to marketing or management of startups tend to be held more by women, There is a clear difference between women who hold the position of COO (14%) compared to men in that position (9%). Furthermore, it is worth noting that the proportion between women and men with the CEO position is equal at 54%.
This change in mentality seems to be seen in the top 10 entrepreneurial sectors with the greatest female presence, in which this year fields traditionally occupied by men appear such as Agrotech in fifth place, Software Development in eighth place and Data and Analytics in ninth place. . As for the three sectors with the greatest presence of women, Health continues to take the top spot, followed by Education and Green Business.
What is the robotic portrait of female entrepreneurs globally?
Their average age is 35 years, 43% of them are serial entrepreneurs (compared to 61% of men), and 45% come from working for another company and only 7% from a startup.
And regarding the financing of startups founded by women, Spain is the region analyzed where women are least inclined to finance themselves with their own funds. Only 3 out of 10 Spanish entrepreneurs are self-financing, far below other areas such as the rest of Europe (63%) or North America (47%). On the contrary, in Spain financing for female startups through private funds predominates (33%), greatly surpassing the percentages in North America (26%) and Europe (13%).
