From Twitter to Dropbox, how many female executives do top startups have? [chart]

Dow Jones VentureSource released a study last week that found that startup companies with more female executives are more successful. (VentureSource defines success as “exited through an initial public offering (IPO), is in IPO registration, is privately held and consistently profitable, or has been acquired for an amount greater than its total venture investment.”) For its study, it analyzed more than 20,000 companies that received venture capital between 1997 and 2011.

But the study, which was focused on broader industry trends, didn’t cite companies by name. So, using data provided VentureSource, we picked a random assortment of 10 VC-backed startups from a range of different sectors and graphed the percentage of executives that are women at those companies. Note: The companies below vary in size—Dropbox, for example, has only five executives in total, while Genband has 63. Even in the progressive world of startups, equality is hard to come by. Three out of  the 10 had no female executives. Glam Media—which operates lifestyle sites, including the female-geared Glam.com—topped the list with females counting as 29 percent of its 28 executives.

(Image via Shutterstock/Michael D. Brown) 


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