<article>Startup funding in Southeast Asia has a gender bias, and, in a first, DealStreetAsia has quantified it.</article>

Startup funding in Southeast Asia has a gender bias, and, in a first, DealStreetAsia has quantified it.
Women founders and co-founders accounted for a mere 16.4% (or $1.4 billion) of the overall disclosed fundraisings ($8.6 billion) in the region in 2020, according to DealStreetAsia&#8217;s latest <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/reports/women-in-startups-sea">Women in Startups: </a><a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/reports/women-in-startups-sea">The SE Asia Edition </a>report.
However, the overall deal value was skewed by the ride-hailing and payments decacorn Grab. The Singapore-based startup, co-founded by Tan Hooi Ling, closed two deals worth a combined $1.06 billion in 2020, accounting for 75% of deal value involving a woman founder and/or co-founder.
Without Grab, the figures are more dismal.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-232734 size-full" src="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/Grab-SEA-Women.jpg?resize=640,363" alt="" srcset="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/Grab-SEA-Women.jpg?w=1116 1116w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/Grab-SEA-Women.jpg?resize=300,170 300w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/Grab-SEA-Women.jpg?resize=1024,581 1024w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/Grab-SEA-Women.jpg?resize=768,436 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1116px) 100vw, 1116px" data-recalc-dims="1" />
&#8220;It [fundraising for a woman founder] is definitely not easy despite the fact that research has shown women-led teams generate a 35% higher return on investment than male-founded companies,&#8221; said Sara Dhewanto, the founder of Duithape, an Indonesian fintech app, in an interview for the report. 

In terms of deal volume, we tracked 625 deals across eight Southeast Asian countries last year, of which there were only 107 deals (17.1%) where the startup had a woman founder or co-founder.
Of these, 76 deals involved startups with a female co-founder and at least one male founder, while 21 had a female founder (but no female co-founder), while 10 had a female founder and co-founder.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-232390 size-large" src="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/KeyFigures_teaser.png?resize=640,238" alt="" srcset="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/KeyFigures_teaser.png?resize=1024,380 1024w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/KeyFigures_teaser.png?resize=300,111 300w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/KeyFigures_teaser.png?resize=768,285 768w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/KeyFigures_teaser.png?resize=1536,570 1536w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/KeyFigures_teaser.png?w=1870 1870w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" data-recalc-dims="1" />
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While this leaves ample scope for improvement in terms of gender diversity, the share of women-founded startups in Southeast Asia has in fact inched up over the decade. In 2011-15, the share of female-founded startups in the region stood at 6.8%, which improved to 9.2% in 2016-20.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-232733 size-full" src="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/SEAsia.jpg?resize=640,431" alt="" srcset="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/SEAsia.jpg?w=944 944w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/SEAsia.jpg?resize=300,202 300w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2021/03/SEAsia.jpg?resize=768,517 768w" sizes="(max-width: 944px) 100vw, 944px" data-recalc-dims="1" />
This growth rate was the second-highest globally, behind only the US&#8217;s 2.7 percentage points growth in the same period. China is the only region that recorded a lower share of women-founded startups in the 2016-2020 period, compared with 2011-15.
The rising share of women-founded startups in the region tallies with what the female founders that we spoke to, for the report, observed: there are noticeably more women stepping forward to build their own companies, especially in the technology space, even though they are still rare.
&#8220;From my observation in Thailand and SEA, I do come across more women founders than before but it is limited to certain industries like lifestyle, leadership coaching, fashion and design, and news media. Many other industries are known to be male-dominated like fintech, healthcare, and mobility,&#8221; said Cindy Kua of the Thai InsurTech firm Sunday in an interview presented in the report.
<h3>Southeast Asia vs the US</h3>
Southeast Asian startups founded solely by women garnered only 0.9% of the capital raised in 2020. This percentage is lower than in the US, where companies founded solely by women garnered 2.1% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups, according to Pitchbook data. However, if we include startups with women co-founders, Southeast Asia (16.4%) fares much better than the US (14.4%).
<a href="https://mailchi.mp/dealstreetasia/womeninstartups_theseedition" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-208318 size-full" src="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2020/09/Screenshot-2020-09-23-at-3.46.17-PM-e1600856217658.png?resize=640,71" alt="" srcset="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2020/09/Screenshot-2020-09-23-at-3.46.17-PM-e1600856217658.png?w=657 657w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2020/09/Screenshot-2020-09-23-at-3.46.17-PM-e1600856217658.png?resize=300,33 300w" sizes="(max-width: 657px) 100vw, 657px" data-recalc-dims="1" /></a>
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The report is available exclusively to DealStreetAsia &#8211; Research &amp; Analytics subscribers. Highlights include a list of all fundraising deals in 2020 where the startup had women founders and/or co-founders. We have also interviewed women founders who raised funds in recent years, including:
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<li>Roshni Mahtani, founder of Tickled Media</li>
<li>Caecilia Chu, co-founder of YouTrip</li>
<li>Cindy Kua, co-founder of Sunday</li>
<li>Raena Lim, co-founder of Style Theory</li>
<li>Rosaline Chow Koo, founder of CXA Group</li>
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Among the 625 deals that we tracked across Southeast Asia last year, there were only 107 deals where the startup had women (co-) founders.

Southeast Asian startups raised $8.6b in 2020 — just 16.5% of it went to women-led firms

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Southeast Asian startups raised $8.6b in 2020 — just 16.5% of it went to women-led firms

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