Women Making History in the Public Markets

As we come to the end of Women’s History Month, let’s acknowledge some history-making women CEOs in the Canadian and U.S. public markets.

In October 2020, Shahrzad Rafati, founder and CEO, BBTV (TSX:BBTV), brought the media company public through an initial public offering (IPO) on Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) raising C$172 million -- one of the top 10 tech TSX listings of all time and the first IPO on TSX with a sole female founder and CEO in the technology sector. In December 2020, Kathy Casey became the latest female CEO of a TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) company when Arizona-based PureK Holdings (TSXV:PKAN) listed through a Capital Pool CompanyⓇ - the Exchange’s most popular go-public vehicle.

In February 2021, Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, was the youngest woman to bring a company public in the U.S. raising US$2.2 billion in its IPO. And in the robust sector of U.S. special purpose acquisition corporations (SPACs), Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital, a female-led SPAC began trading on Nasdaq in January 2021, followed up by Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital II with an all-female team formed by VC Victoria Grace and Agility Logistics, which filed in February 2021. On March 19th, Athena Technology Acquisition Corp rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as the first all-women SPAC to IPO on the NYSE.

But is this just the tip of the iceberg of what is possible for women-led companies and the money available in the public markets?

Consider this… in Canada last year, TSX and TSXV companies raised C$42.8B in Canada but just C$488M was raised by the 90+ women-led TSX and TSXV companies… a tiny 1% of the total raised.

This is despite several data points showing that female-led public companies tend to perform very well.