ABSTRACT
This chapter explores issues relating to access to capital with a specific focus on growth-oriented women-owned firms using large, longitudinal data set of US firms. Women-owned firms represent an important segment of the business sector. Social feminism contends that women and men are, in fact, different in terms of characteristics, values, and motivations due to differences in the ways in which each gender is socialized. The chapter provides an overview of the firms in the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) at baseline year of 2004, comparing firms owned by men and women, and then examining the differences between those and just those that have high growth potential. It examines types of startup financial capital, both internal and external, that are employed by women-owned firms and how their amounts and sources of capital differ from those of firms owned by men. The chapter also examines how the sources of capital used by growth-oriented firms compare to those that are smaller, lifestyle businesses.
