Britain's tech industry needs to address its gender gap and invest in women

Writing in City AM, Check Warner, Partner at Ada Ventures, and Alexsis de Raadt St James, founder and managing partner at Merian Ventures, a UK-US venture fund that invests in female-led technology, discuss the need to engage the brightest minds from all backgrounds to accelerate UK's economic recovery and fuel future growth.

In the first four months of this year less than 0.5% of the £5.3bn investment into London tech firms went to women led businesses. The untapped potential of female founders equates to more than 1m missing businesses and £250b for the UK economy.

To target the female funding gap, Ada Ventures and Merian Ventures are partnering with London & Partners, HSBC UK, Wilson Sonsini and FieldHouse, to launch Beyond HERizons, a new 12-month programme from Silicon Valley Comes to the UK designed specifically to support the investment journey of female founders. The Beyond HERizons inaugural cohort will support fifteen incredible female entrepreneurs for a full year, with a programme designed to support access to investment.