A drive to boost the number of female angel investors in the island has been launched.

The initiative has been launched by the Bridge Angel Network which also wants to help connect the women with the money with female business founders and entrepreneurs looking to grow their enterprises.

(An angel investor is an individual who provides capital for a business start-up. Angel investors usually give support to start-ups at the initial moments and at a time when other investors may not be prepared to back them).

The invitation-only event took place at the Bath & Bottle in Douglas, where guests heard from two speakers.

They were Evelyn Simpson, a former investment banker and now angel investor, board member of Investing Women Angels in Scotland and co-founder of her own coaching and mentoring business and female founder Lydia Barbara, who pitched her new start-up company, Curbsy.

The new dinner series provides women considering or new to investing, with a supportive environment within which to meet like-minded individuals.

Attendees learn more about how to become an angel investor, what to look out for in a company pitch, hear from knowledgeable guest speakers and meet with female founders looking to grow their business. Guest speaker Evelyn Simpson said: ’Investing Women Angels has played a key role in more women becoming angel investors in Scotland and we are delighted to see Bridge Angel Network launching and developing an initiative with similar goals in the Isle of Man.

’We were honoured to be invited to support the launch event and look forward to working with Bridge as the initiative progresses.’

It is well reported that men are still outpacing women in entrepreneurship and more needs to be done to encourage new generations of women to take the leap in to business ownership.

Katie Nicholson, manager of Bridge, said: ’On the Isle of Man, the ratio of female founders is on average about 85% male to 15% female at this time and we also see a similar gender split when it comes to our investor base.

’We know that a key challenge for female founders is the lack of access to funding and this was highlighted in a recent UK female founders report, commissioned by Chancellor Philip Hammond at Budget 2017 and undertaken by the British Business Bank in partnership with Diversity VC (venture capital) and the BVCA (British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association).’

The report identifies specific barriers faced by female led firms in accessing venture capital.

For every £1 of venture capital (VC) investment in the UK, all-female founder teams get less than 1p, compared with all-male founder teams who get 89p.

Mixed gender teams receive just 10p in every £1 of venture capital investment in start-ups. At current rates, for all female teams to acquire just 10% of this investment pot, this would take approximately 25 years (that’s 2045).

A total of 83% of deals that UK VCs made last year didn’t have a single woman within the founding teams.

Miss Nicholson added: ’Bridge is passionate about supporting and developing the entrepreneurial eco-system on the Isle of Man and we believe it’s important to play our part in helping to grow the number of female investors and founders on the island. As the saying goes ’’when women support each other, incredible things happen." ’