Startups by women took merely 2.2 % of venture capital in 2017 according to data from PitchBook Data Inc., a financial data and software company headquartered in Seattle. It was also found that less than 13% of venture capital went to US startups with at least one female founder.
Startups by women and minority founders have been the focus of SAP.iO No Boundaries, SAP’s initiative to offer venture capital and incubation to underrepresented entrepreneurs, since its launch at the start of 2019.
Shoba Purushothaman, a founder of multiple startups in the last 18 years, is one of the women leaders that have received support from SAP. Purushothaman and her co-founders at Hardskills, an online platform that helps companies train their workforce in behavioural skills, have been one of six startups in SAP’s new B2B diversity accelerator in Berlin.
