VCO prioritizes its programs on empowering women and diverse founders with education, mentorship, networks, and access to capital to continue their path towards success. We launched Women Entrepreneurs Realizing Opportunities for Capital (WeROC) in 2017. WeROC is a women-focused entrepreneurship program that helps women gain access to capital, provides them with startup business education, networking opportunities to venture capitalists, and one-on-one mentorship. Along with the tools needed to succeed in their startups. Women-led startups deliver twice as much per dollar invested vs those founded by men (78% per dollar versus 31%) but receive only about 2.8% of all venture funding despite owning 38% of the businesses in the country. VentureCapital.Org launched WeROC to address these disparities.
To date, the program has empowered more than 50 women-owned and operated businesses and utilized a nationwide network of approximately 500 mentors. Only 2.8% of investment capital awarded in 2018 went to women-founded or women-led companies. We look to radically change that by fueling, promoting, and empowering women-led companies.