The co-founder of PropertyGuru, angel investor and VC partner is on a mission to advance female founders and get more women into the investment ecosystem
“Despite so much progress globally on so many fronts, there is still a huge gender equality gap,” says Steve Melhuish, who is an angel investor, startup advisor, VC partner and entrepreneur whose businesses include Singapore tech unicorn PropertyGuru.
Melhuish recalls attending a recent annual leadership conference held by a leading management consultancy where out of 20 talks, there were only two women in keynote or panel roles.
Another small closed door investor roundtable with the CEO of a large impact-focused fund that prides itself on gender equality invited ten guests, Melhuish included. All of them were men, which had seemingly gone unnoticed until Melhuish pointed it out.
And he continues to get invited to participate in ‘manels’—all male panels. “I refuse to speak at manels and make it clear why,” he says. “The usual excuse of ‘we couldn’t find a woman speaker’ is simply unacceptable and not good enough.”
See also: How Pass Her The Mic is bringing more women to conference and events stages
When Melhuish started looking into investing in the sustainability space five and a half years ago, he was encouraged by the number of women in senior roles, particularly in the positions of chief sustainability officer and head of sustainability. “If we want to save the world, then we need more women at the top table,” he says. He expected to see the same in the sustainability and climate tech startup ecosystem in Asia, yet that remains very male-dominated.
That said, Melhuish has invested in a number of women-led startups, including Jessica Cheam’s Eco-Business, a media, advisory, training and event platform advocating and accelerating sustainable development across Asia; Durreen Shahnaz’s Impact Investment Exchange (IIX), which aims to create an inclusive financial system where women, the environment and underserved communities are valued and have a voice; Fengru Lin’s TurtleTree, a sustainable food and nutrition company that makes use of precision fermentation and cell-based technologies; Entela Benz’s Intensel, a climate data analysis platform in Asia helping enterprises and funds assess and mitigate climate risk; and Gayatri Bhatia’s Elevate Foods, which uses technology to reduce food waste and create more sustainable agri-food solutions.
“Investing in women simply makes financial sense. Historical data and research continually show that diverse teams outperform the market—on average, they tend to have higher probability to lead and capture a market, higher revenues, higher profitability, higher multiples on money invested, higher exit multiples, higher business value and lower failure rates,” says Melhuish.
See also: Beyond The Billion’s Sarah Chen-Spellings on why female-led businesses are worth the investment
