The Allocation Gap: When Investment Bias Overrides Investment Evidence
The latest report by Ankh Impact Investors highlights a striking disconnect between capital allocation and performance reality: despite mounting evidence that gender-diverse leadership teams and women-led enterprises frequently deliver competitive—and in many cases superior—risk-adjusted returns, women-focused investment opportunities continue to receive a disproportionately small share of institutional capital. Drawing on global performance data and allocation trends, the research underscores how persistent structural biases in capital markets are limiting access to high-performing investment opportunities, suggesting that closing the gender investment gap is not only a matter of equity but also a significant untapped source of portfolio outperformance. (weforum.org)
Founder & CEO Pierre N Rolin says
The math doesn't add up.
Women control 85% of consumer spending. They decide 91% of home purchases, 93% of food, 80% of healthcare.
Yet women founders get 2.3% of venture capital.
Here's what the market is missing:
Performance beats bias. Every time.
→ Data consistently shows that startups co-founded by women show higher growth and better performance than all-male teams
→ 10% more revenue over 5 years
→ 2.5x more revenue per dollar invested
→ 25% more likely to outperform EBIT margins
Better judgment, better outcomes
→ Women entrepreneurs are less likely to overestimate their track record
→ Yet their businesses consistently outperform
→ This isn't confidence. It's calibrated risk management.
Culture as competitive advantage
→ Women-led teams are more communicative, collaborative, and open to learning
→ They hire 2.5x more women into their organizations
→ Inclusive teams don't just perform better, they build better companies
At Ankh Impact Ventures, we don't invest despite the data. We invest because of it.
The best-performing founders in venture are systematically overlooked. Ankh Impact Investors exist to change that: with capital, connections, and conviction.
Editor note: Here are just a few of several well-known examples which illustrate the capital-allocation gap vs. eventual performance:
Sara Blakely (Spanx) – Rejected repeatedly by investors early on and built Spanx using personal savings; later became one of the youngest self-made female billionaires after scaling the company globally.
Melanie Perkins (Canva) – Faced years of venture-capital rejections before securing funding; Canva went on to become one of the world’s most valuable private technology companies.
Whitney Wolfe Herd (Bumble) – Initially struggled to secure broad institutional backing for a female-focused dating platform concept; Bumble later achieved a multibillion-dollar IPO valuation.
Katrina Lake (Stitch Fix) – Encountered skepticism from investors about the data-driven retail model and female-led leadership; ultimately built Stitch Fix into a publicly listed company valued in the billions at IPO.
Key takeaway: These cases are frequently cited because they demonstrate how investment gatekeeping and pattern-matching bias can delay capital access even where strong commercial models ultimately deliver significant returns.
Building a women-led business that's ready to scale? Let's talk: pnr@ankhimpactvc.com
