Like A Mother

A few months ago I was thrilled when the lovely woman I was chatting with at an industry event introduced herself as Loretta McCarthy managing partner, Golden Seeds. I knew about Golden Seeds, which was the first angel-seed network that exclusively supports women-lead companies, founded 12 years ago in 2005.  McCarthy, former executive VP and CMO at Oppenheimer Funds, and VP of Marketing at American Express, knew first-hand how sexist the corporate world was, and saw this play out in startup world.  While half of businesses in the United States were started by women, just 17 percent of startups that get funding are led by a woman, and Bloomberg found that just 7 percent of companies that received $20 million or more in funding between 2009 and 2015 were owned by women. Companies founded by women also get an average of $77 million compared with $100 million for male-led startups. The startup paygap is real.  Golden Seeds is changing that. In its 12 years, the organization has grown to 300 investors who have in