Zhengzheng Pan Speaks on Gender Gap in Startup and Venture Capital

October 16, 2024, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Pamplin Hall, Room 1045

Zhengzheng Pan, angel investor and founder of Zenith Path Advisory, Virginia Tech alumni (2009, Ph.D.), will give a talk on “Gender Gap in Startup and Venture Capital.”

The talk is co-hosted by the Center for Future Work Places and Practices at Virginia Tech and will take place on October 16, 2024, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Pamplin Hall, Room 1045.

Despite stereotypes of startup founders being male, women founded 49% of startups in the U.S. in 2021, a notable increase from 28% in 2019. But they are not getting funded. Harvard research shows that the 30-year average of all-female founders’ share of VC funding is merely 2.3%. Women founders also face the headwind of lacking social capital, which highly correlates with the heavily unbalanced financial capital allocation. In this presentation, Dr. Pan will discuss the value of supporting female founders, as well as some of the myths about startups and venture capital.