, says that many female founders are focused on delivering success once they’ve raised money, “so they don’t want to overvalue or overpromise and underdeliver” and accept slightly more dilution.
A few of the companies listed said that their female cofounders’ option plans helped beef up their company ownership.Adding to the problem is that stock compensation packages are down to negotiation — which can often disadvantage female founders as much as the equity negotiation process. “I think I was in a very privileged position having worked as a VC before, so I had an overview, but this is rare.”Alice Bentinck believes female founders need to make a deliberate effort to benchmark against what male founders would be asking for.
“One of my female founders came to me before they raised their Series B and asked me to take an anonymous sample of our most recent Series B raises and tell her what the founder equity was at the end of each raise, so she could have a benchmark in her head,” says Chambers.