Unlocking Gender-Smart Capital At Scale (2X Global's Jessica Espinoza)

Despite research showing that female founders outperform their male peers, startups with a solo female founder or an all-female founding team raised a mere 2% of all the funding in Africa last year. There is a huge gender funding gap. How do we close it?

This episode is the last episode of a five-episode series on gender lens investing, co-hosted by Eloho Omame, Founding Partner of First Check Africa, an early-stage fund backing female-led startups. Each episode of this series will explore a different level of the fundraising value chain. 

In this episode, we're exploring ecosystem and capacity building with Jessica Espinoza, the CEO of 2X Global, an organization aimed at unlocking gender smart capital at scale. Jessica chairs the 2X Challenge which has raised more than $27 billion of gender lens investments since its launch at the G7 Summit in 2018.

00:00 - Intro
02:10 - Unlocking gender-smart capital at scale
03:43 - What is gender-smart capital?
06:46 - Applying the 2X framework to investing
10:25 - Building the gender-smart investing ecosystem
19:52 - The primary issue is bias
22:54 - Mainstreaming gender-smart capital
25:55 - What is success for 2X Global?
33:29 - A retrospective conversation with Eloho & Justin

In Episode 1 of this series, we spoke to the founders: Bamboo's Yanmo Omorogbe & Uncover's Sneha Mehta: https://theflip.africa/podcast/why-is-only-2-of-funding-going-to-female-founders

In Episode 2 of this series, we spoke to angel investor Yemi Keri, Co-founder of Rising Tide Africa: https://theflip.africa/podcast/this-angel-investor-is-closing-the-gender-funding-gap

In Episode 3 of this series, we were joined by the fund managers: Alitheia Capital's Tokunboh Ishmael & TLcom Capital's Andreata Muforo: https://theflip.africa/podcast/investing-in-women-is-an-economic-imperative

In Episode 4 of this series, we spoke to an LP investing in the fund managers: Sam Akyianu, Managing Director of the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund: https://theflip.africa/podcast/mastercard-foundation-is-investing-150-million-into-20-gender-lens-funds

This series is created under the ScaleX project: Co-designing Solutions to close the early stage gender-financing gap in Africa, an initiative of Make-IT in Africa.

Make-IT in Africa promotes entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems across Africa for green and inclusive development. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH implements this project on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). 

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