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Argument, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2023
Autistic founders were told to learn the pitch and to build their own fund
In short
At the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium, the entrepreneurship panel heard that the pitch still decides who gets capital, and a hope that the community would one day fund autistic startups itself.
Read it instead, 5 minutesThe transcript
The story
The entrepreneurship panel at the 2023 Autistic Pride Day Symposium gave autistic founders two pieces of advice about money that pointed down different routes. One was to accept the system as it stood and learn its central ritual, the pitch. The other was not to rely on that system, or on government, alone, and to build the community’s own capital.
The second came first. The opening panellist had just argued that government plans already mentioned autistic entrepreneurship and needed funding behind them, and Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, turned straight away to an investor on the panel, who co owns a company that invests in women and gender diverse founders of startup businesses. The investor welcomed the prospect of government action and then moved the emphasis. Being as entrepreneurial as autistic people are, the investor said, the community should “put our entrepreneurial hats on and work out ways to do this for ourselves as a community”.
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Sources the story draws on
- How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions? (opens in a new tab), National Bureau of Economic Research (The Digest)
- Women-founded startups raised 1.9% of all VC funds in 2022, a drop from 2021 (opens in a new tab), TechCrunch
- Investors overwhelmingly backed all-male startup teams in 2023 (opens in a new tab), Women's Agenda
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