- I'm Edie and I'm very pleased to be here
with Jessica from BCG.
Thanks for coming along. - Thank you.
- And you've brought a couple of friends with you
from the People of Crypto. - Exactly.
- You brought Simone and Akbar.
Welcome to you all.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
- Very happy to be here.
- So we've got an interesting topic of conversation,
and we're going to talk about gender diversity in Web 3.
Any good news?
- No, I'm going to ground this in horrendous facts-
- OK. - for a starting point.
- So we did a statistical study with these guys
trying to focus on foundation in Web 3.
So when we talk foundation,
we talk of startup founders and investors,
and we took a good look at the space.
And when you look at all of the founders in Web 3,
a horrendous only 7% of them are female.
- What? - 7%.
- Wow.
- And there's a reason for that.
And the reason for that is when female entrepreneurs
actually decide to create startups,
they are almost 78% of them
that actually find a male to co-found with.
If you are a male and you want to create a startup,
then 74% of them actually choose male also.
- Wow.
- And so that is at the root of that huge discrepancy.
But there's also a very rational reason for that,
is if you look at how much money
these companies actually raise,
a company that is all-female founded will raise
four X less money than an all-male-founded startup.
Let that sink in...four X.
It means that if you're an all-female team,
you will likely raise about 8 million on average.
And an all-male team will raise 30 million on average.
That's the gap.
And then when you look at why that is,
you look at startups that have raised
more than a hundred million, so a very sizable ticket,
their share of all-female startup teams
in that hundred million raises is less than 0%.
- Wow. - So it's, actually,
there is none.
- That's incredible.
- That is our starting point in the Web 3 space.
- Okay, given that cheery starting point,
Simone, why does it matter?
- So I think, first, there is opportunity.
So we're very, very early in the intersection
of this technology.
It matters because we are now moving into a phase
where how we transact, how we monetize,
and how we interact together has now become more important.
People always talk about Web 3 as the evolvement
of the internet.
I think it's far more important than that.
When you look at like a light bulb, we used to go on,
a hundred years ago, but you would go on the streets
and you would watch the street be lit up,
or you would watch a building be lit up.
No one understood what that light bulb would do
for the industrial revolution.
It basically kick-started it.
So now we are looking at Web 3,
moving from this industrial status
now into a digital economy.
And if we are not part of the development as women,
as people of color, as diverse voices,
it will be built in the image of those.
And we've already seen what happens
in Web 2, where you saw predominantly cis white males
creating these ecosystems.
We don't want Web 3 to now become
a repetitive nature of Web 2.
We have the opportunity to intersect with intentionality
and really understanding that the foundational build
has to be built differently for us to make change.
And again, I do think there's,
as bad as that was, there is opportunity.
- Totally.
- Well, we have a female founder right here-
- who fund-raised successfully.
- We did successfully raise...
- Fantastic. - ...with her male co-founder.
- Yeah, that's true.
- OK. Alright. Well, congratulations.
So Akbar, what can brands do if they care about this
and want to get involved and want to make change?
- Yeah, they're so paramount to this
because brands drive culture.
Brands drive awareness.
If you look at groups like L'Oreal, like LVMH,
their followers are loyal.
They have millions of fans and followers.
So if we can use them as a tool to educate,
if we can let them know the importance of this technology,
if we can let them know why we need to bring women in,
break down barriers to entry,
think about the mass onboarding that that could entail.
Women are going to be the catalyst for change.
I feel they always have been.
And women, when women come on board, they give other voices,
underrepresented communities, like the LGBTQIA,
like people of color.
So we need women at the table
and we need brands to come in and support women
and women-like brands.
And we need VCs to pay up.
And back women.
So it all kind of works together here.
- Here, here!
- And that's really why we founded People of Crypto.
We did not see ourselves represented
in the current ecosystem.
We believe that for us, diversity is not a word.
It's the foundation of our company.
If you want to be a profitable company,
it's already shown that diverse teams
are more profitable than others.
So while it's the right thing to do,
it's also the profitable thing to do.
And when you're looking at the way that we've created it,
we've been very intentional.
So our team represents 98% women;
99% are people of color.
When we look at our cap table,
we were very intentional to ensure
that anyone coming on board
would be part of our mission and vision.
The projects that we develop are created to ensure
that it's reflective of the world
we want to see reflected back.
And those are the reasons that brands, honestly,
have a way to authentically connect,
like what we did with L'Oreal.
Because it's not beyond or abroad,
it's part of who they're already speaking to.
And when we're entering Web 3,
to the point of, it cannot be a loophole,
it cannot be a DNA, like, oh, well we're over here,
we're talking about diversity.
But then when we get to Web 3, it's, eh-
- Not so much.
There has to be intentionality as you move through it.
- Fantastic.
You know, I, my feeling about diversity's inclusion,
we don't need to make the world any more diverse.
It already is.
But we do have to focus on the inclusion part.
So we started off this conversation,
I wasn't feeling so positive.
I'm feeling more positive with you guys in here.
So thank you very much for stopping by the studio here
in Davos 2023.
- Thank you.