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2014, she again faced sexist stereotypes when raising funds for another add-on, Prime Women Media, a company that creates content designed for women over 50. Her team paid to pitch a group of male investors; they gave Freeman’s team a slot on an election night, when the room was practically guaranteed to be empty. The sole investor who did express interest in Prime Women Media never followed up. Freeman’s group eventually turned to 17 women angel investors to get the funding they needed for their new venture. “We started working our networks, and we ended up with these women that invested in us individually,” she says. It’s not a new problem. Female entrepreneurs say there are deep-rooted institutional biases when it comes to securing funding for their enterprises. The data supports this. According to Fundera, 40 percent of U.S. businesses are women-owned, but just 7 percent of women receive venture funds for their startups. One challenge is that women make up only 4 percent of investment sector leaders, according to Harvard Business Review. Women-owned private equity firms, such as Austin’s True Wealth Ventures and New York’s Golden Seeds, are attempting to close the gender gap, but it’s a wide divide. Connecting with female-led investment firms is one way for women business owners to get capital to launch their businesses, especially if they operate in traditionally male-dominated STEM spheres. “It’s relatively easy for women to get funding in things like retail and service-based industries, because that kind of fits in people’s heads,” says Williams of the Dallas Entrepreneur Center Network. “But, when you start pivoting outside of that into the sciences, that’s when you see a lot of those biases come in.” Lea Ellermeier, a Dallas entrepreneur behind Lingualcare and two other dental tech companies, recalls an investor meeting that ended with a discussion about local nanny services. “I was just sitting there thinking, ‘I bet you did not have this conversation with the last guy who was in here,’” she says. Other stereotypes came into play as well. “It was harder to raise money because there was always an expectation or the assumption that I wasn’t going to work as hard as that 25-year-old guy in the hoodie,” Ellermeier says. She found the capital she needed by reaching out to foreign sources. “My first big investor was this gentleman in Germany, who took a risk on Lingualcare because he was used to investing in women,” she says. After Lingualcare sold to 3M in 2008, Ellermeier became CEO of U.S. operations for Replicate Dental Technologies, an implantology com-
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RESOURCES AND SUPPORT THE DALLAS ENTREPRENEURSHIP CENTER NETWORK. The DEC provides networking and fund sourcing for local entrepreneurs, connecting business starters with local accelerators, mentors, events, and resources.
DALLAS INNOVATES. The site’s funding page maintains an ongoing list of capital sources, compiled by the Dallas Regional Chamber. Sources include angel investors, family offices, and venture capital and private equity firms.
TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY—CENTER FOR WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS. The Denton university provides funding, networking, training, and business advice to both established women entrepreneurs and those starting out.
TEXAS WOMEN VENTURES CAPITAL MANAGEMENT. This group of private equity funds supports women-owned and women-led businesses with revenue between $10 million and 100 million.
pany that was making its way through the FDA approval process. With its parent company in Germany, the majority of Replicate Dental’s funding originated in that country. More recently, Ellermeier has shifted attention to her latest venture, 2C Dental Technologies. D OI N G I T F OR T HE MSELVES
Other women, in an effort to meet financial needs yet still maintain control over operations, are taking funding matters into their own hands. Teresa Mackintosh, CEO of Addison-based software company Trintech, had a positive capital experience in the tech sector but emphasizes the proactive role she took in researching investors. Mackintosh was named to lead Trintech after 16 years with Thomson Reuters and four years with a tax and accounting software group. When looking to take on investors, she extensively vetted potential private equity firms, connecting with fellow CEOs in the tech sector to gain insights and combing through portfolios with a critical eye. “Women can feel like we are lucky to be receiving money and investments, versus our expectations that we’re bringing something of value to the table, and [investors] should be vying for that opportunity,” Mackintosh says. “An entrepreneur should be just as selective about who they are accepting money from as the investor is selective.” Poo~Pourri founder Suzy Batiz, also took matters into her own hands. Wanting to avoid the pressures of obligations to others, she launched her innovative air-refreshment brand in 2007 entirely on her own, putting in an initial $25,000 and negotiating longer terms with vendors to stay afloat during the early days. “It is control in one way,” she says. “But it’s more that—I can maintain the values, and I don’t have any outside influence.” Thirteen years and another brand launch later, Batiz and her children still own 100 percent of her roughly $500 million enterprise, despite the many acquisition and investment offers. Although the startup infrastructure in Dallas has come a long way and the city remains one of the best environments for entrepreneurs in the country, funding challenges beg consideration of just how many cracks in the glass ceiling have been made. “I do think there has been some progress, but I don’t think it is noteworthy,” O’Neill says. The increasing visibility of successful women entrepreneurs can help create momentum and be an effective tool for changing attitudes, says Ellermier: “Seeing more and more examples of women being successful in the workplace helps us all.”
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