Catalysing Equality: How Venture Capital, Private Equity Fund Managers and Impact Investors are applying a gender lens in Latin America and the Caribbean

This report was written by Value for Women (VFW) in partnership and with the support of UN Women’s Win-Win Programme and summarizes the findings of a rapid scoping study that was conducted between April 2021 and June 2021 to capture the state-of-the-field in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) of investing with a gender lens. In particular, the report focuses on understanding what Venture Capital (VC) and Private Equity (PE) investment funds in the region are doing to invest with a gender lens. We look at gender lens investing through three entry points: providing capital to women-led and gender-forward businesses, applying a gender lens across the investment process and advancing
gender diversity in the investment firm.

Through this report, we hope to create a baseline for gender lens investing (GLI) practices in the region and promising approaches that will increase the uptake of strategies across the investing ecosystem in LAC. To that end, the report aims to characterize gender lens activity in the LAC region; shine an exemplary light on GLI practices for investors in the region to learn from and follow; and provide recommendations for a framework that field builders could utilize going forward to assess funds on the extent to which they have integrated GLI practices.