OEN Member NewsAna Andueza on how Portland’s investor community can better serve the needs of our entrepreneurs

OEN Member Ana Andueza is the CFO of Criterion Brock, an active local angel investor and the vice chair of OEN’s Angel Oregon Spring 2015 Program. This post is part of a regular OEN guest column for the Portland Business Journal’s TechFlash:

Take a moment to picture a “typical” investor. Chances are, a gray-haired white male comes to mind. And even though it’s 2015, this picture still represents the majority of investors today. So, why is this a problem? After all, investors are merely the vehicle by which capital catalyzes startup growth. The money could go to anyone.

It could, in theory, but it typically doesn’t. According to Score.org, the angel community in 2014 was 82 percent male and 96 percent white. And as Forbes staff contributor Brian Solomon explains, “since angels typically invest with connections and friends they know, the startup entrepreneurs soliciting their money is similarly disproportionate.”
Nationally, entrepreneurs fundraising from angels in 2014 were 84 percent male and 93 percent white.

Locally, our statistics reflect similar disparities. Since the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) launched its Angel Oregon Investment Award LLC in 2005, only about 18 percent of the more than 400 investors who have participated have been women.

Of the 573 applicants to Angel Investment Programs across the state since 2012 — this includes OEN’s Angel Oregon, the Bend Venture Conference, the Willamette Angel Conference, and Roseburg Angel Investment Network — 7.3 percent were minority-owned companies and 23 percent were women-owned.

Read the rest at: www.bizjournals.com