Female entrepreneurs – fitter, more ambitious, better funded?

Appropriately enough on a day to mark Women in Business during Enterprise Week, it appears female entrepreneurs are more up-beat about the future and more ambitious than men. 

The latest research suggests 88% of women in business predict growth over the next five years, compared to 74% of the opposite sex.

Everywoman, a group set up to support and encourage enterprising women, found that these levels of growth, if delivered by female entrepreneurs, could result in £12 billion turnover growth.

Of some concern, however, is that the survey of 1,500 male and female business owners also showed that 53% of women did not understand the finanicial products and services available to them to support business growth, compared to just 25% of men.

This survey is at odds with one from Delta Economics reported in this week’s Telegraph which suggested female entrepreneurs were better placed to survive the recession because they were less ambitious, more cautious when it came to borrowing to fund growth and more maternal in relation to employment policies.

A view contested by Margaret Manning, founder of digital agency the Reading Room, who said today:

I believe they are less concerned about the economic climate because they are more confident individuals than their male counterparts … Women who ‘make it’ in business have to be more determined, faster and more ambitious than their male counterparts.

Meanwhile the government was unveiling a £25 million fund for women’s enterprise.

The investment fund, known as the Aspire Investment Fund, will be jointly funded by government and the private sector.

It will be accessed by Business Link, managed by Capital for Enterprise and aims to support high growth businesses looking for between £100,000 and £2 million in funding.

[Picture credit: makani5 @ flickr]