We have a female Prime Minister, Leader of the House of Lords and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. In the private sector, we are seeing the highest female employment rate on record with more women assuming board roles. And the gender pay gap is at an all-time low.

Women have the drive to go it alone. They are up for the challenge with a good work-life balance being utopia. And the UK isn’t lacking women with an abundance of ambitious ideas for enterprise either. But when it comes to taking the leap, women seem to be a little more cautious.

In fact, if women set up businesses at the same rate as men, we’d have an additional one million entrepreneurs in the UK.

So, what’s stopping them?

Women are typically less confident than their male counterparts at the business start-up stage, yet they face exactly the same challenges in starting and growing a new business.

Women tend to have a softer approach. Their drive comes more from a need to achieve fulfilment than a healthy bank balance. And they naturally add childcare and parental responsibilities into the equation… which inevitably leads to a more cautious attitude to risk.

Role models (or lack of) are often cited too. Women tend to be seekers of reassurance, they gain a lot of inspiration from hearing about, or seeing, someone like them. And they don’t need to be of celebrity status – achieving success from a standing start is enough. It demonstrates, even confirms, entrepreneurship as a viable career option.

Role models can be good mentors too. Often described as an amazing source of inspiration, knowledge, guidance and confidence building, a mentor is sometimes all that is needed when you can’t see the wood for the trees.

But despite all this, the greatest hurdle for female entrepreneurs has often been access to finance. Yet it is so essential to achieving growth.

In many cases, it’s a simple lack of knowledge around alternative forms of finance that is the problem. Women aren’t always aware of the full range of funding solutions available to them, including crowdfunding and angel investors.

This may be why female-led businesses continue to achieve far lower levels of funding than those led by men.  So much so, in fact, that 86 per cent of male entrepreneurs are more likely to be VC funded, and 56 per cent more likely to secure angel investment.

Or is it simply because the proportions of men seeking funding are far higher than those of women, and because, true to form, the men ask for more money in the first place?

A recent study by a small business funding specialist would suggest so. Their findings found that female leaders of start-up firms are actually more successful than men when applying for funding, but males still get the lion’s share of the cash.

Of those surveyed, 13 per cent of females successfully received financial backing compared to just 11 per cent of men. However, because of their volume (698 men vs 135 women), the men banked more than £4m compared to less than £333,000 for the women.

Nonetheless, it’s a great boost for female entrepreneurs; they’re either better at producing an attractive funding proposal or they simply start more fundable businesses.

But it isn’t stopping the men. They’re still the gender more likely to turn to investors when searching for capital to grow. And, as men are more inclined to secure deals with investors, investors are inevitably more likely to invest in a male-led business. The vicious circle continues.

This latest research should, however, start to spread some optimism for women, especially as there’s further scope for them to take matters into their own hands.

As the gender more skilled in creating a good community, women can join forces and lead as one by taking the initiative to invest in fellow female entrepreneurs.  83 per cent of women who have started their own business also know someone else who has done the same. And, with the number of female angel investors quadrupling in recent years, the trend for lady like peer-to-peer finance is already underway.

A more risk averse approach to business doesn’t indicate inferiority. Rather, being more motivated by process, it is possible that women take a more considered approach to scaling up. They focus on the incremental steps to success when their male counterparts have the end goal in sight before the company even has a name.

Essentially, it comes down to two very different approaches to achieving the same goal. With increasing access to mentoring and finance, there’s no doubt that female entrepreneurs are a growing economy.

If you would like to discuss how we could help you to reach your goals in securing the right finance to scale-up, then give us a call on 0203 327 0567 or email [email protected].