“People don’t always take women seriously in the tech world,” says Leanne Robers. The co-founder of She Loves Tech, which runs the world’s largest start-up competition for female entrepreneurs as well as its acceleration platform for women and technology, has faced both implicit and explicit biases as a female founder.
“Before building She Loves Tech, I was a tech founder myself. At meetings with potential investors, male investors would look past me and speak to my male co-founder instead; many times, they wouldn’t even look at me even though I was the CEO of the company,” she shares.
And she has been called “feisty” multiple times. “I didn’t think that was an issue because I was so socialised to it,” she says. “It took my husband to point out that language matters and some can be dismissive. He said that if it had been a man, that same behaviour [would be described] as ambitious, determined, confident.”
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To overcome these deep-seated biases, Robers started She Loves Tech to put female founders front and centre, highlighting the work they are doing to venture capitalists. “We’re breaking the bias that women don’t build good businesses; we’re putting it right in front of [everyone’s] faces how amazing these companies are. The results speak for themselves,” she says. “Companies have raised more than US$250 million after going through She Loves Tech.”
She Loves Tech recently partnered with Microsoft Asia to bridge connections between female entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and angel investors from around the world, moving towards its commitment of unlocking US$1 billion in capital for women-led businesses in Asia by 2030. Robers tells us more.
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How is She Loves Tech using tech as a force for good?
Leanne Robers (LR): We’re the world’s largest start-up competition for women and technology. We also provide acceleration services for female tech founders and just launched a fund to invest in them. We’ve grown faster than we can keep up, and our global reach and community is a valuable point of difference for our start-ups. To be in more than 50 countries in just a few years with a lean team means we need to be efficient and resourceful in the way that we run our business.
Technology has also propelled us to scale heights that we never imagined possible. It has allowed us to reach around 7,000 entrepreneurs in the past two years and work with a diverse slate of amazing, trailblazing leaders for our programmes. Speakers at our annual conference include Thrive Global founder Arianna Huffington, Mastercard executive vice-chairman Ann Cairns, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, and many more.
