Scotland’s first all-female business angel syndicate, Investing Women Angels (IWA), and its sister organisation AccelerateHER have launched a new scheme designed to attract more businesswomen into angel investing.

The W2W initiative is set to be a first for Scotland by bringing together existing women investors and entrepreneurs on an ‘investment journey’ with emerging female-led companies from across the country.

Starting next month, the scheme will be led by experienced female founders who have previously raised multiple investment rounds, as well as investors from IWA and other angel syndicates.

Amongst the women leading the sessions will be international partner, Gwen Edwards, joint managing director of the Silicon Valley chapter of US investment group, Golden Seeds.

Edwards is already an established player in the Scottish investment scene, having built links with IWA and AccelerateHER in previous support of high-growth, female-founded Scottish companies, including life sciences innovators Carcinotech and Cytochroma.

“Increasing the numbers of women angel investors has been an incredibly effective strategy in the US, which has created an echo effect significantly benefitting female-founded companies,” said Edwards.

“Through this programme, we can replicate the US model in Scotland where there is a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem and so many inspiring and innovative female-led businesses.” 

IWA said that, together, the team will ‘demystify’ angel investment across the initiative’s month-long series of events, with further support provided by W2W legal partner Burness Paull along with entrepreneurship ecosystem partners.

The group will work alongside women from female-led start-ups, including spin-out companies from both Strathclyde University and University of Edinburgh, sharing knowledge and practical real-life experiences to promote more understanding of the equity investment process.

According to IWA this will include a strong focus on international investment strategy, due diligence, pitching, and investor communications.  

The W2W programme will commence from 12th December 2024 and run through to mid-January 2025 with ongoing follow-up support for all its participant companies.

IWA founder, Jackie Waring, said: “We’re very excited to be rolling out the W2W programme across Scotland, which is fully focused on further promoting entrepreneurship amongst women and helping female founders scale their businesses on a global level.”

IWA said that the W2W scheme is being delivered as a direct response to the 2023 Pathways Report authored by businesswoman Ana Stewart and Scotland’s former chief entrepreneur, Mark Logan. 

The report highlighted the massive equity gap in Scotland, where start-ups founded by women receive only 2% of overall investment capital despite one in five businesses here being female-led.

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It’s hoped that the W2W scheme will have the same impact as the Springboard Programme set up in Washington, DC, which contributed the ‘echo effect’ by delivering a near 40% increase in the number of women angel investors, and a rise in the level of investment going into US female-led businesses.

Scotland is already pushing hard to close the investment gender gap, with AccelerateHER launching a new Female Founders Accelerator in February for 100 female-focused startups, IWA launching a series of investment rounds in October set to raise more than £4.5m for four female-founded companies, and Pathways Forward taking on its third cohort of Pledge partners to take actionable steps for supporting women in business.

Despite the progress, a recently published government-sponsored report showed that the share of deals going to companies with women founders is 28% across the market, and that all-female teams continue to receive a lower share of VC follow-on funding, acquiring just 7% of  their funding compared to the 68% enjoyed by all-male teams.