Jacob Wolinskyis the founder and CEO of ValueWalk - a well-known financial media service. Before launching ValueWalk, he was an equity analyst at a micro-cap-focused private equity firm and then moved to a small/mid-cap value-focused research shop and worked in business development for hedge funds. He lives with his family in Passaic, New Jersey
The Israeli startup and innovation ecosystem remains among the most vibrant in the world, despite entrepreneurs having to face ongoing macroeconomic challenges and new realities that are rapidly reshaping the marketplace.
A recent First Quarter 2023 Israeli Tech Sector Report by Startup Nation Central (SNC), a domestic non-profit organization, revealed that funding rounds and investor-back deals have significantly decreased compared to the same period last year and the fourth quarter of 2022.
These measurements remain in line with wider global performance, which has seen investors pulling their interest from several industries as economic and financial burdens weigh down on their investment-backed efforts.
Nonetheless, Israel continues to hold onto the strength of its diverse technology sector across multiple sub-sectors, allowing entrepreneurs and startup founders to establish more agile and innovative domains.
As organizations, investors, and other stakeholders become more selective, new opportunities for female entrepreneurs and women-owned technology businesses are allowing them increased potential to pioneer a new era of high-tech innovations.
The rise of women in tech
As Israeli tech entrepreneurs continue to face evolving realities within the local ecosystem, female entrepreneurs and women-led and women-owned businesses provide an increased understanding of how much the landscape has changed over the last several years.
For example, back in 2017, Israeli entrepreneur Daniella Gilboa, an embryologist, statistician, and founder of AIVF, had to face a predominantly male-dominated marketplace. Her presence rapidly changed the conversation about women's place within the high-tech sector and startup ecosystem.
As of last year, a growing list of female-founded tech companies is now operating within the femtech ecosystem, helping to promote women’s wellness, with many in the oncology, cancer support, breastfeeding, aesthetics, wellness, safety, and reproduction sector.
In terms of monetary value, SNC data indicates that approximately USD 160 million was invested in femtech companies in 2021, and in 2020, this number stood at more than USD 215 million.
Gilboa, along with other female entrepreneurs, innovators, researchers, and business owners have since helped change the course of direction in which the country is being steered in terms of the local startup landscape.
Just last year, three Israeli business leaders - Eynat Guez, Adi Tatarko, and Daphne Koller - were named among Fortune’s 15 Most Powerful Women in Startups list of 2022.
Guez, Tatarko, and Koller all own and run unicorn companies valued at more than USD 1 billion.
These women, just like Gilboa, had to undergo tremendous challenges in making a mark on their respective industries, securing investors, funding, and more importantly, gaining support from the Israeli consumer market.
Across several industries, but more importantly, the femtech sector, female entrepreneurs are leading the charge with innovative biotechnology systems that aim to improve the wellness of Israeli women but also become the benchmark for global application.
Challenges persist
While the Startup Nation continues to reap multiple benefits from female-led companies in the biotech and other high-tech industries, there is room for improvement in the coming years.
Women in high-tech companies still only comprise a small minority, with only one-third of high-tech employees being female, a figure which has remained constant throughout time. A further look reveals that women continue to remain outnumbered by their male peers at each stage of the high-tech industry, from startup founders to capital fund managers, and executives.
Elsewhere, data from 2021 show that less than 10% of all CEOs who founded startups in Israel over the last decade are women. A similar, and seemingly discouraging outlook is found in the percentage of women that occupy managerial or executive positions in high-tech companies, with only 22.6% in these positions.
The problem with the lack of female representation in the high-tech industry stems from earlier developments in women’s educational pathways. Female students were greatly outnumbered when it comes to the gender balance of the potential future of 5 -study units atriculation exams in computer science.
Subsequently, around 35.5% of female students of approximately 3,500 learners participated in 5-study unit matriculation exams. Even after high school, the number of male students who studied for a math and science-oriented matriculation certificate to further their university studies in STEM (Science, Technology, Education, Mathematics) is more than 60% higher than those of female students in the same category.
There is however a positive side to the discouraging insights. Female student representation in universities and academic colleges increased by 150% over the last several decades, however, women comprise around 30% of all university students.
The ratio of women to men entering the high-tech sector has seen steady improvements over the last several years, however, growth remains slow in some expertise areas.
Across most levels of industry, the lack of female representation creates both new opportunities, and challenges for female entrepreneurs to fill the void, and further narrow the gender inequality experienced in the tech market.
Breaking through the glass ceiling
The upcoming decade could present a new approach for women in tech, but more importantly, women’s representation across multiple areas of the digital economy.
Both domestic and international efforts have seen new women-focused programs come to life, as business leaders from all backgrounds continue to improve their efforts to help bring more women into the high-tech industry.
Earlier in the year, Israel played host to the Cartier Women’s Initiative (CWI) Impact Event, a program that brings together industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and investors to collaborate and pitch their innovations.
The overarching intention of CWI is to help more female entrepreneurs gain access to the necessary tools, resources, and connections within the community to help contribute to each other’s success.
Events such as these, among others, enable women-led and women-owned businesses to further expand their network, helping them gain access to the necessary financial, social, and human capital needed to scale up their businesses and leadership abilities.
Elsewhere, Women Connect to Innovate, a gathering that saw more than 100 female business leaders from four continents join a regional collaboration event that took place in May 2023, has become another branch of support and resource sharing among female entrepreneurs and innovators.
The event which took place in Marrakech, Morocco, and stretched over three days helps to promote the importance of the work female entrepreneurs are doing in crucial industries such as climate tech, agri-tech, and femtech, among others.
Back home in Israel, many witnessed the launch of a groundbreaking learning program at the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) last year. This program, the first of its kind, is exclusively designed for female students and offers a B.A. Business Administration degree.
The degree program places a strong emphasis on crucial subject areas such as data mining, machine learning capabilities, coding, and analytics. These skills are considered essential in today's fast-growing digital economy, especially with the widespread use of advanced Artificial Intelligence in commercial settings.
The three-year program was introduced during the Fall Semester of 2022 and stands out as the only English-speaking business degree offered exclusively to female students at the Tal Campus for women at JCT. Notably, the program has gained popularity among haredi women who seek a degree program that respects their religious standards.
Given the recent opening of such programs and the rapid growth of the haredi population, it is highly likely that JCT will experience rapid expansion in the coming years, potentially attracting competitors who seek to replicate its success.
Universities have rapidly been modifying their learning programs in an attempt to equalize the playing field between women and men.
These efforts could come a long way, and they could prove to further help bolster Israel’s already vibrant tech startup ecosystem.
While it’s not without a range of unique challenges, and while women continue to catch up with their male peers in the tech industry, the work that has already been done has helped to lay the foundations of a new era of women in technology.