Kaisa Snellman

Mar 20, 2023 | knowledge.insead.edu | Lily Fang |Kaisa Snellman |Claudia Zeisberger |David Munro

Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) recent collapse marked the largest failure of a United States bank since Washington Mutual in 2008. Formerly the darling of the region’s tech start-ups, the bank announced it had sold off a significant number of securities at a loss and was planning to raise US$2.25 billion through selling new shares in order to shore up its balance sheet. This triggered mass panic among prominent venture capital (VC) firms, leading to a run on the bank.

Feb 7, 2023 | knowledge.insead.edu | Kaisa Snellman |Isabelle Solal

One of the challenges female founders face is raising funds. This is particularly true when it comes to venture capital (VC), which has a reputation of being a boys’ club and a tough place for women to break into. Women make up only 13 percent of investing partners at VC firms in the United States and two thirds of VC firms have no female partners at the table. This means that female founders end up pitching to male investors –usually with little success.