Will the next ICT giant be started by a woman?

After decades investing in “white male nerds who have dropped out of Harvard or Stanford,” venture capitalist John Doerr broke a pattern in July: he invested in a woman.

Not that Kathy Savitt was a risky bet. The former CEO of American Eagle Outfitters and a senior executive at Amazon, Savitt built Lockerz.com, a social networking and commerce site for ages 13 to 30.

She grew it from 50 college and high school students to 15.5 million users in less than 12 months, leveraging natural networks of friends and social influence.

In the web technology world, she’s a rock star.

Doerr, and his firm, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, are well-known for prescient, industry-leading investments including Google, Intuit, and Amazon.

They estimate they’ve created 150,000 jobs.

But in an industry obsessed with placing bets based on what’s known as “pattern recognition,” women-led companies are funded less than 9 per cent of the time.

According to Shaherose Charania, this recently dropped as low as 3 per cent.

For women older than 40, the rates are even lower. Savitt, a 47-year-old mother of two, breaks that mold.

Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, describes this more recent phenomenon: “There are more women in the world. They represent a greater share of markets and purchasing power. Being more proactive about increasing their presence in the industry just makes sense.”

Recent studies by the Kauffman Foundation and venture capitalist Cindy Padnos of Illuminate Ventures show high-tech businesses with women in leadership outperform the rest.

They are more capital efficient, launching with 30 per cent-50 per cent less capital, generate 12 per cent higher revenues, and have lower failure rates.

Starting businesses

If women are so good at starting businesses, then why does it take them longer to start one?

Well, according to a Tampa University study, women are bitten by the entrepreneurial bug later than men.