By Milla Ewart

Disclaimer: Negin Khodayari, the editor-in-chief of The Eyeopener, is an instructor teaching a Zone-affiliated course this semester. She was not involved in the reporting of this article. 

While female entrepreneurship is on the rise, access to funding remains a major barrier to success. Business owners at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) said they require stronger support personalized to them, in order to close the gap. 

In Canada, women entrepreneurs make up 20 per cent of the market—yet less than five per cent of venture capital is directed towards female businesses according to the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub. Female entrepreneurs at TMU said the university provides a foundation for student entrepreneurs, but women-centric funding and community building is vital to future growth. 

The Office of Zone Learning & Strategic Initiatives at TMU is home to 10, non-credit programs that support start-ups in their early stages. The Toronto Met’s 10 Zones each focus on a distinct industry, providing mentorship to students with experts, access to workspaces and guidance on how to tap into funding opportunities, according to their website.

Fahmida Parvage and Jazmyne Mohamed are both fifth-year students in chemical engineering and mechanical engineering—they’re also co-founders of Project CAHTA, a sustainable fishing venture. They were awarded a Norman Esch Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award last year, valued at $5,000, and their pitch earned them a spot in a variety of TMU’s Zones. 

“It’s really competitive and we were really lucky enough to get that spot,” said Parvage, adding that “through the funding, we were able to directly work on the technical side of things.” 

The duo said they feel lucky to have each other not only as engineers in a business together but also as women in a male-dominated industry, considering only one quarter of tech-startups are founded by women according to Womentech Network.

“There are a lot of startups at the university, but they are mostly male-led, right? And so it’s kind of tough to sometimes see yourself,” said Parvage. 

Wendy Cukier, a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation, and founder of the Diversity Institute at TMU, said the historical gap of funding stems from how lenders assess women-led businesses. In an email to The Eyeopener, she said investors view these firms as riskier “due to their smaller firm sizes, their focus on the services sector and collateral shortages,” referring to a lack of money that could help secure a loan. 

She said to improve the funding, they need to “celebrate success across sectors, to challenge stereotypes and mainstream inclusion across incubators and accelerators, training programs, financing and other supports.”

Mays Abdullrazaq is a third-year business management student and has also found it increasingly difficult to get a spot within these zones. Abdullrazaq runs Crown Hair Oil, a product that stimulates hair growth and stems from an heirloom Eritrean recipe.

Abdullrazaq said the 10 Zones do not have a program dedicated to the beauty industry, making it difficult to find an incubator to provide her funding and support for her specificity. 

The support Abdullrazaq has received over the year has been through student organizations. Last year, the Black Business Student Association hosted a Shark Tank style pitch competition, where she won second place. 

Abdullrazaq said that most of the other competitors in the competition were either tech-based or all-male teams. 

“I feel like people underestimate the beauty business in general, which is why they find it to be not as profitable,” she said. 

The Eye reached out to the Zone Learning regarding this commetn but did not get a response in time for publication.

This struggle is not uncommon among women in business. Heather Cannings is the Women Entrepreneurship Program lead at NVenture, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing financing and strategy for entrepreneurs. 

She said that a negative bias towards women-owned businesses still exists, and they are “not seen as legitimate or as having the potential to be as successful as male-led businesses.”

Cannings added that because much of the investment industry is male-dominated, certain business ideas, particularly those focused on women’s needs, may be overlooked if investors do not see them as relevant to their own experiences.

Alison Dec is a fourth-year retail management student and is the president of Women In Leadership (WIL) at TMU. She said “having a pool of funding that’s just for women initiatives would go a long way on campus.”

Abdullrazaq also saw the need for this type of initiative. 

“I would love for maybe women-only Shark Tank competitions or workshops with mentors…that would really inspire me,” said Abdullrazaq.

Parvage and Mohamed emphasized the importance of being able to network and find community with other women entrepreneurs, hoping the university could work more with groups like WIL to promote their networking events. 

“Having a community for women entrepreneurs, where they can talk about their problems and help each other solve them is super beneficial to their business growth,” said Cannings. 

The women founders sampled at TMU emphasized the importance of community and support among each other.

“Go out and find women to build relationships with—it helps you remain confident and powerful wherever you stand,” said Parvage.

“We’ve been told…to change the world but you have to start one step at a time, start from one community, one, one industry and move from there” added Mohamed.

When asked to describe how it feels being a female entrepreneur at TMU, Abdullrazaq had a one word response, “bold.”