Giving Compass' Take:

• In this podcast, Monica Dodi, co-founder of Women’s Venture Capital Fund, explores how to move women forward in the venture capital world.

• How are you currently investing in female entrepreneurship?

• Read some advice from female venture capitalists on how to pursue social impact investments.

Dan Morrell: Monica Dodi (MBA 1984) has spent much of her career as an entrepreneur and tech executive and was well aware of the challenges facing women in her field. But it wasn’t until she got into the VC world, sitting on the other side of the table, that she realized the extent of the funding problem that female founders were facing. It was bizarre, Dodi thought. She knew that a diversity of views meant a higher return on investment, higher productivity, and higher profitability—a fact that is supported by plenty of research. And yet only 2.2 percent of VC funding goes to female-founded firms.

So in 2011, Dodi founded the Women’s Venture Capital Fund with HBS classmate Edith Dorsen (MBA 1984), intent on funding teams with at least one woman in the mix and turning them into an investment opportunity that traditional VCs are simply overlooking. In this special episode of Skydeck, recorded live at Fall Reunions, Dodi speaks with Associate Editor Jen Flint about the challenges that female founders still face—and what real progress will take.

“It it really comes down to putting where your money where your mouth is. Part of it is this unconscious bias. But we just need more women to feel comfortable writing checks.”

Flint: As a woman in VC you are among the 9 percent of venture capitalists who are women, so talk about what happens when there is a woman in the room, when there is a woman who’s writing the checks and making the decisions.

Dodi: Well, there’s been a lot of studies, but there's more of a risk-intelligence approach where, instead of trying to go for those home runs all the time and the next Google or the next Facebook, you know, you can certainly make great returns when you go for singles and doubles. And we've seen that by having a diverse group of people, the results are far better.

Read the full article about venture capital funding for women at Harvard Business School.