- January 26, 2025
- Posted by: EBAN Team
- Category: News
![](https://www.eban.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/By-Women-For-Angels-Amplifying-Investing-Initiatives-interview-with-rita-anson-1110x550.png)
- Rita, you’ve had an impactful career in both the startup ecosystem and angel investing. Can you share with us the key moments that led you to co-found the Women Investors Network Norway (WIN) and to be involved in Nordic Ignite?
Thank you for the opportunity to share my experiences and insights.
Throughout my career in Norway, I have been deeply committed to creating opportunities within the startup ecosystem. One pivotal moment was realising the untapped potential of women as both investors and entrepreneurs. While delivering Nordic Angel Program in 2018/20 and its courses on my role at NorBAN and attending various startup events and investment forums, I noticed together with other female professionals in the ecosystem, that women were underrepresented on both sides of the table—as angel investors and founders. This observation inspired the decision to co-found with my female partners, Women Investors Network Norway (WIN) in 2020 , running it in parallel to my other activities to empower women to step into the investment space with confidence and to provide them with the tools and networks necessary to succeed.
Similarly, my involvement in the founding team at with Nordic Ignite stems from a shared vision with the other founders in Iceland and in Norway, to make the investment process accessible, transparent, and equitable. Today as part of Nordic Ignite’s Management team our approach to investing aligns perfectly with the belief in supporting not just promising startups but also creating a level playing field for all founders, regardless of gender. This mission has guided both roles, driving change in the investment ecosystem.
- Nordic Ignite’s approach to investing focuses not just on capital but also on offering support and sharing networks. How do you think this model helps startups and investors, particularly women entrepreneurs, succeed?
Nordic Ignite operates on the principle that startups need more than just capital—they need strategic support, mentorship, and access to networks. This comprehensive model is particularly beneficial for women entrepreneurs, who often face challenges in accessing the right resources and connections.
Therefore our clear and inclusive application process ensures that anyone, regardless of their network or background, can schedule a meeting with us. This removes barriers like needing a personal introduction, which disproportionately affects women founders.
Even if a startup does not receive our funding, we ensure that every founder receives a thoughtful response. Many women founders have expressed gratitude for this approach, as it helps them refine their strategies and build resilience.
In addition, we actively collaborate with other VCs and investors who focus on female-led startups to increase the deal flow of women entrepreneurs. By working together, we try to create an ecosystem where women-led ventures have greater visibility and access to funding opportunities if not with us with others in the investment landscape.
We believe that this has led to higher engagement and trust among female entrepreneurs, and we hope that this will contribute to the success of several women-led startups.
- How does Nordic Ignite specifically support female entrepreneurs, and what has been the impact of this support on your portfolio companies?
We aspire to achieve gender equality within the founding teams in our portfolio.
This means that to support female entrepreneurs, we prioritise Diverse Teams as we actively seek out startups with women in leadership positions and evaluate them based on their potential rather than traditional biases.
On another hand, female founders in our portfolio can benefit from access to mentorship within our own investor community of shareholders who understand the unique challenges they face but also are in industry sectors which networks could support them.
We want to use this guidance as invaluable in navigating hurdles like scaling female businesses and of course securing follow-on funding after they grow..
Last but not least, our portfolio companies with gender diverse teams companies get amplified their stories and successes, inspiring hopefully more women to step into entrepreneurship or&and to show strong growth trajectories.
- You’re actively involved in EBAN’s Gender Community, which is committed to promoting a gender-balanced angel investing ecosystem. How can initiatives like these help women investors overcome the barriers they face in the industry?
In my opinion and based on the previous experiences with WIN and with Nordic Ignite when I joined EBAN’s Gender Community, I had always in mind what in Norway and in the North Atlantic I have seen in the last years as a need within the activities we have implemented also with NorBAN.
Initiatives as this are covering the need of providing Role Models, both for adult and young women, featuring profiles of successful women investors and entrepreneurs inspires others to envision themselves in these roles.
EBAN gender community help women investors to overcome barriers by creating Support Networks as we aim in our different actions to foster collaboration among women investors, but not only, as it is very relevant to also share knowledge, resources, and opportunities.
Advocating for Policy Change: By highlighting the importance of gender balance in angel investing,
EBAN drives awareness and encourages stakeholders to implement equitable practices with this initiative and complement the work of networks like our in WIN Norway and others in Europe.
- WIN has been a great platform for empowering women investors in Norway. How can we expand this model to other regions, and what advice do you have for organisations aiming to build similar networks for women in angel investing?
Thanks for pointing this, as other functioning organisations aiming to same goals, interconnected and intersupported, is what I really believe is the success of having built a platform that could replicate its model but mostly could cocreate more impactful networks.
In WIN the framework has been adapted in several occasions through the EEAGrants scheme and we are proud to have addressed the unique cultural and economic dynamics of each region when transferring our knowledge with the real hope that this will lead in building similar networks specially throughout East Europe.
This support and funding scheme has allowed us to create Partnerships with Local Organisations and try to inspire them to collaborate with existing investor networks, accelerators, and educational institutions to create tailored programs for women.
It would be a dream to establish a cross-regional platform in some undeveloped areas when it comes to female investments where women that already are considered investors can exchange insights and best practices, fostering a sense of global community for the ones that are yet investors in training.
We started small but we think big. Nevertheless we have found also challenges as creating a strong core group of committed members and build from there has been not easy, but WIN finally last year managed to create the investment vehicle Women Ventures I and now WIN is on the way to create WIN Ventures II.
- Looking at the current landscape, what do you believe is the most significant challenge for women entrepreneurs and investors today? How can we as a community address this?
Undoubtely access to Funding for women entrepreneurs referred to the small share of venture capital funding.
As a community we can address this talking more and making more relevant the unconscious biases and a lack of representation in decision-making roles.
Hopefully with more visibility we provide to this women and this challenges founders and investors will gain recognition for their achievements, which can limit their opportunities.
Also as a Community in the ecosystem not only for Nordic Ignite but also for EBAN we are already working on promoting Diversity in Investment Committees ensuring that our decision-making in investments bodies reflect diverse perspective to inspire and normalise female presence in both sides.
- Finally, what changes would you like to see in the next 3-5 years that could improve the support and recognition of women in angel investing and entrepreneurship?
I believe the dream for our society in the next years will be not only to see increased representation with more women in leadership positions within VC firms, angel networks, and startup boards, but also with many more available and realistic targeted Funding Programs and grants for women-led startups specially in the early stage of development to level up the playing field that can lead into more effective investments.
To seal this all this changes we need to be aware that it will not happen unless we don’t build stronger alliances among organisations and countries that work on different layers in this same topic unified in advocating for gender balance.