After pay gap bombshells, Victorian business leaders consider startup investment bias

The release of groundbreaking gender pay gap data has shaken the startup world, with Australian founders and corporate luminaries calling for new ways to measure how venture capital does — and doesn’t — reach women founders and women-led startup teams.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) on Tuesday revealed how median pay is skewed towards men across Australia’s largest companies, along with data showcasing the pay gap within individual organisations.

Those findings rippled through LaunchVic’s pre-International Women’s Day breakfast, held on Friday, where speakers asked if a similar initiative would benefit the startup sector.

Some venture capital firms have committed to being more open about the breakdown of their investments, and the proportion of funding that makes its way to projects founded by women and mixed-gender leadership teams.