Octane, Orange County’s largest business accelerator, has launched a series of women-focused initiatives to foster industry growth in the region, and to offer female execs at upstart area firms a wider collection of business contacts, particularly in the venture capital sector.
“Women probably have better ideas as entrepreneurs,” CEO of Octane Bill Carpou told the Business Journal. “What is lacking is access to materials to build their business, and access to the venture community and investor networks.”
“We have the people and the resources to bridge this gap,” Carpou said.
The group’s new initiative, Women Leaders of Octane (WLO), will have four focus areas: create more women-led startups; help women secure venture funding; provide more networking and mentorship resources, and grow the number of female board members, officials said.
55,000 Jobs by 2030
Founded in 2002, Octane is a medical and technology accelerator with a mission to create 55,000 high-paying technology jobs in Southern California by 2030.
It reported creating 17,096 jobs since 2010, 3,266 of which were created amid the pandemic in 2020.
While the organization’s founding principle of creating jobs in Orange County remains the same, its focus has shifted in recent years, from medtech to other burgeoning markets, including climate tech, cybersecurity, AI and gaming, Octane Chairman Jim Mazzo said.
“Octane has diversified into many fronts,” Mazzo said. “We’re trying to be the leading area of where new entrepreneurs are coming from.”
Its LaunchPad accelerator works with 50 to 60 tech and medtech companies per year. In 2020, it reported raising over $445 million in capital for those firms, while companies in its immediate network raised an additional $164 million.
Notable LaunchPad alumni include Irvine fintech Acorns, San Juan Capistrano eye care-focused drugmaker Allegro Opthalmics and Irvine project management software firm Mavenlink.
A Rising Undercurrent
According to Octane officials, women entrepreneurs remain significantly underrepresented in terms of funding.
They account for 54% of new business starts, yet secure 3.1% of venture funding, according to the group’s data.
“Close to no women-run companies were coming through our accelerator, and the few that did wouldn’t get funded anyway,” Mazzo said. “We saw an undercurrent that needed to be risen.”
As a result, Octane launched WLO to increase the ranks of women entrepreneurs and business leaders.
“We’re trying to meet women where they’re at in this program by providing a tailored set of resources, whether it’s after hours or weekends, to make it as accessible as possible for them,” said Janelle Brunette, Octane’s chief administrative officer.
To feed the organization new women-led startups, Octane will scale its partnerships with ScaleHealth in Los Angeles, Los Angeles Venture Association and Connect San Diego, Brunette said. The organization will also deepen its relationships with investors seeking women-led companies, like Bay Area-based Portfolia.
Women on Boards Registry
Another focal part of the initiative is the Women on Boards Registry, which connects qualified women interested in offering high-value impact to boards with both public and private organizations seeking to hire women for their boards via an online portal.
In 2018, the Women on Boards, or Senate Bill 826, was signed into law, making California the first state in the nation to require all of its publicly held companies to have at least one female director on their boards of directors by 2019.
By the end of 2021, all five-board members must include at least two women, and boards of six or more directors need to have three.
At the time of the bill’s passing, The California Secretary of State reported that nearly 25% of California’s publicly held companies’ boards had no women.
Currently 23% of Octane’s board of directors is women, Carpou said. The group is also set to announce a notable women business leader to its executive leadership team next month.
“Our board is representative of diversity of thought and experience,” Carpou said. “As CEO, I can get alternative perspectives. I want to take something I believe in and pressure test it against people I know will push back, and a great board will do that.”
Drugmaker Aerie Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: AERI), which got its start in Irvine, is a founding sponsor and underwriter of the registry; details of the donations were undisclosed.
“We’ve gone down so many paths in the past few years, and at times it feels almost overwhelming, but it’s the right thing for the community,” Carpou said.
“I want to make sure we’re always excelling in each of them.”
