Gender Equity in our Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

An Affiliate Event of Maine Startup & Create Week

Did you know…

Women are now the majority owners of 38% of US businesses.

Yet these firms employ only 8% of the nation’s private sector workforce, generate 4% of the nation’s business revenues, and access 2.4% of VC funding. Venture capitalists invested $58.2 billion in companies with all-male founders in 2016. Meanwhile, women received just $1.46 billion in VC money last year, according to data from M&A, private equity, and venture capital database PitchBook.

Please join us Friday, June 23rd from 7:30am-8:45AM at the Portland Public Library Rines Auditorium, for conversation and networking around the importance of gender diversity from the perspectives of both the entrepreneur and the investor, ending with time to explore next steps.  Coffee and light breakfast items will be served. This event is free and open to the public, please register here to attend.

Speakers:

Susan MacKay is CEO of Cerahelix, a materials and cleantech startup that she co-founded in 2011. Susan has raised more than $1.9 million in seed capital for Cerahelix.  She holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill, and was named a “Woman to Watch” by Mass High Tech in 2011.

Sandra Stone is Chair Emeritus at Maine Angels, Maine’s angel investment network in southern Maine with a growing subchapter in Bangor. Sandra is President of the Board of Trustees of a private out-of-state grant-making foundation, where she has been an active Trustee since 1990. She is also Principal of Sea Cove Solutions, enhancing connections and creating linkages in innovation and the ecosystem with an intentional focus on female entrepreneurship.

Sheryl Schultz is currently the co-founder and President of CabinetM, a management and discovery platform that helps enterprise marketing organizations increase efficiency and performance, and reduce their marketing spend, by planning and managing the technology they use, while finding the technology they need. CabinetM supports the drive toward digital transformation.  Also a Managing Director at Golden Seeds, a network of angels that provides early stage and growth capital to women led businesses, Sheryl is a regular speaker on issues related to fundraising, startup marketing, and female entrepreneurship.

Hosted by: The Women’s Business Center at CEI, New Ventures Maine, and Women Standing Together.
In Collaboration With: Maine Technology Institute (MTI), Maine Accelerates Growth (MxG) and Maine Angels