Insights
9 reform proposals for female entrepreneurship
Susanne Najafi of BackingMinds and Shoka Åhrman propose nine reforms in Dagens industri to boost female entrepreneurship and access to capital in Sweden.
In an op-ed in Dagens industri in March 2023, BackingMinds General Partner Susanne Najafi and SPP savings economist Shoka Åhrman put forward nine policy reforms to boost female entrepreneurship in Sweden. Women run only 20% of Swedish companies with employees, and in 2021 female founders received just 0.5% of the venture capital invested. The proposals include:
dedicating part of the state’s venture capital to female founders
putting more emphasis on STEM and entrepreneurship in schools
making public procurement fairer to smaller companies
adapting social insurance and unemployment benefits to the self-employed
keeping the RUT tax deduction
making it cheaper to hire
creating a tax-favoured savings account women can use as start-up capital
The authors argue that the state and private capital must pull in the same direction. The same belief drives BackingMinds’ work to back entrepreneurs the market overlooks.
