We were thrilled to return to Austin in partnership with Dell Technologies, Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network, Dell For Startups, and Intel, to convene some of America’s leaders in both venture capital and entrepreneurship to kick off SXSW and International Women’s Day.

Against the backdrop of a decline in VC funding to all-women founding teams in 2023, funders and founders convened to discuss key strategies to continue to address what needs to be done.

Led by Co-Founders and Managing Partners Shelly Porges and Sarah Chen-Spellings, Beyond the Billion (BTB) mobilized over US $1billion in its first nine months from their original 86 Fund Partners who today number 123 including Texas-based True Wealth Ventures, Ajim Capital, and the Artemis Fund. Within the first two years, BTB’s Fund Partners around the world invested over US $638million into almost 800 women-founded companies (WFCs), with fourteen of those now having been identified as unicorns, including a notable few with Austin roots: Everly Health and Canva. As importantly, a subset of those almost 800 deals (479) went on to raise almost US $4billion, demonstrating the catalytic effect of breaking the funding barrier for so many early-stage WFCs.

“Austin is officially our most-visited tech hub. We are thrilled to be here in Austin in the lead-up to SXSW and to partner with Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network and Dell Technologies,” said Shelly Porges.

“Building on our first pledged funds investing in female founders and the oversubscribed event consisting of 100+ founders and investors gathered here today, we are confident that the Austin community will be one of our strongest in the U.S. We are excited to see what we can all do together to address the egregious gender venture investment gap to ensure we can fuel women-led innovation for the benefit of all.”

“The continued outperformance of female founders points to the missed opportunity by investors who do not have diverse teams in their portfolio,” said Sarah Chen-Spellings.

“Further in a time of crisis, women CEOs and female founders have shown themselves adept and resilient, warranting more, not less, investment. Closing the gender venture investment gap will require a concerted effort from all in the ecosystem – and crucially at the LP level backing funds that invest into female-led innovation, to ensure a robust pipeline of capital exists. This is where we believe Beyond The Billion will continue to play a role in mobilizing a global community of mission-aligned investors, and why an important part of our convenings are the private LP-GP Roundtables where systemic discussions take place.”

“As someone who has spent 20+ years in asset management, I am not surprised by the difficulties talented female and under-represented founders face in raising capital and scaling their businesses. The funding landscape is changing, but way too slowly. The statistics are clear—diversity has demonstrable value add to the scalability of startups, and we are committed to expanding capital for female founders” said Lizanne Atherly, Beyond The Billion’s newest Partner.

In Jude’s (Sr. Director at Dell Technologies) summary of the Dell Women Entrepreneurs (WE) Cities Index, she looks at Austin’s ranking in the overall Index as well as within the dedicated pillars – like the innovation / technology pillar:

“Over the last couple of decades, Austin has really established itself as a technology powerhouse and Austin now ranks in the top 10 for technology. So given the criticality of technology to your businesses it’s good to know you are living in a city where that pillar [technology pillar] is growing.”