POWELL, Ohio — To help more women-owned businesses flourish in central Ohio, the female-founded investment group Accelerating Angels is making sure women get the capital they need to succeed.
“It’s a win-win for everyone in our fund,” said co-founder Cindi Englefield. “I’ve been an angel investor for quite a while and when we heard the statistic that less than 2% of venture capital goes to female founders, we felt like we needed to do something. It was time to help move that needle.”
Englefield and her co-founder Mary McCarthy recently selected two companies as the recipients of their first-ever round of funding.
“My whole entire entrepreneurial journey has been supported by other women, founders, women-owned businesses,” said the founder of SureImpact Sheri Chaney Jones, one of the two companies chosen by Accelerating Angels.
Jones describes her company as “a software platform that helps government, nonprofit, social enterprise track what they do, how well they do it and how people are better off so that they can make data-driven decisions to help solve problems like homelessness, affordable housing, hunger, mental health."
SureImpact has gotten the attention of Microsoft to help the company scale globally, which has attracted investors like Accelerating Angels.
“Women produce 35% higher returns and are exiting faster for investors to get a return on their investment, that kind of tells the story that, you know, maybe we're onto something,” said Englefield.
Groupize, a total meeting and event management solution, was the other company chosen from among more than 267 companies that applied.
Englefield said it's all about putting dollars into the right hands. Jones said it’s also about putting confidence into women-owned businesses that traditionally rarely saw a dime.
“All of the female investors in the fund will also benefit from our success,” Jones said. “And that makes the work even more special.”