Rethinking Capital Through a Gender Lens

Sagana opened the conversation by grounding participants in the principles of gender lens investing — an approach that integrates gender-based factors into investment decisions to drive both financial and social returns. This framing is critical in a landscape where only 2–3% of global capital is allocated to women fund managers across private equity and venture capital, and where women-led MSMEs face an estimated USD 1.9 trillion financing gap, with 70% of businesses unserved or underserved by traditional financial institutions. At the same time, the private gender lens investing market remains relatively small — approximately USD 7.9 billion AUM — underscoring how early the field still is and how much room there is for growth. Against this backdrop, the discussion highlighted the power of catalytic and philanthropic capital to shift systems, ensuring that financial structures and incentives actively promote inclusion from the start. 

Participants agreed that achieving gender equity requires rethinking not just where capital flows, but how it is structured and deployed — creating investment ecosystems that serve women and girls equitably across all levels. 

Embedding Gender Lens Investing in Practice

A central focus of the session was how the UNICEF Venture Fund embeds a gender lens throughout its investment process. The Fund applies gender and inclusion considerations from the earliest stages — through accessible and inclusive application processes, clear communication, and deliberate efforts to reach and amplify underrepresented founders, including women and young entrepreneurs in emerging markets.  Participants also reflected on what entrepreneurship looks like in emerging markets — including  how demographic-focused financing windows can expand access to capital, and the contextual risks tied to identity-based funding. 

Speakers emphasized that inclusion is not only about who gets funded, but also how communication and engagement are designed during the sourcing process. By maintaining open, supportive communication — including simplified application language, multilingual materials, outreach through grassroots accelerators, and consideration of accessibility accommodations for demo presentations — the Fund helps applicants navigate complex funding systems and ensures that promising founders are not left behind. 

The discussion also turned to how philanthropic funders can align more closely with investment frameworks. While grant funding and investment capital operate differently, finding a shared language between the two can help philanthropic actors adopt more catalytic approaches — preparing ventures for future investment and fostering sustainable impact. Participants noted that philanthropic capital has a dual catalytic role: it can directly strengthen early-stage businesses while also activating broader markets, helping to crowd in private-sector investors and de-risk innovation in emerging fields such as FemTech. 

Finally, the group emphasized the importance of collaboration and shared pipelines among investors, accelerators, and development organizations. By working together and sharing deal flow, the ecosystem can ensure that high-potential women-led and youth-led ventures find the right kind of funding and support to scale their impact. 

FemTech Ventures

The UNICEF Office of Innovation presented FemTech Ventures as a compelling case study in gender lens investing. Defined as technology-based solutions designed to improve women’s and girls’ health and wellbeing, FemTech Ventures spans innovations in software, diagnostics, electronics, and connected services. For UNICEF, FemTech represents a crucial opportunity to close persistent gender gaps — particularly for the 1.6 billion women and girls in emerging markets whose health needs are still unmet by current systems. 

The need is clear. Despite representing half the global population, women remain significantly underrepresented in research and funding: only 2% of medical research spending addresses pregnancy, childbirth, and reproductive health. Meanwhile, women-led MSMEs face a financing gap of up to USD 1.9 trillion, and only 3% of digital health funding goes toward FemTech solutions. 

A Call to Collective Action

The discussions underscored a shared understanding: to unlock the full potential of women-led innovation, capital must evolve. By intentionally structuring, deploying, and incentivizing finance to serve inclusion, we can build ecosystems where women and girls not only benefit from innovation — they lead it.