Unilever has pledged to up investment in female-founded start-ups, according to a report published by The Drum.

Currently, some 23 percent of investment made by Unilever in start-ups is channeled into female-led businesses. The Anglo-Dutch FMCG giant has committed to increasing that figure to 50 percent by 2023. To that end, Unilever has teamed up with the UN Women and 22 further companies to form the Global Innovation Coalition for Change, which aims to push for transparency and establish mentoring programs to address the problem.  

Speaking to The Drum, Aline Santos, Unilever VP of Marketing described the gender disparity within the start-up community as an ‘epidemic problem’.

“I thought at least in this new industry of start-ups and entrepreneurs, where there are more young people, we would have less of a problem,” she told The Drum. “A company like Unilever – a big investor in start-ups and that really uses their services and is able to scale them – saying we are interested in having more women-led business in our portfolio is going to trigger lots of actions.”