Women are making powerful strides. In Washington, a record number of women are holding seats in Congress — as well as, of course, the vice presidency. In Hollywood, a record number of films are featuring women, both on camera and behind the scenes.
However, when it comes to publicly traded companies, the number of women leaders is still dismally low. Only 3 percent of companies that went public from 1996 to 2013 had women CEOs, according to sociologist Martin Kenney and economist Donald Patton of the University of California, Davis. Those who have studied the issue suggest everything from investor bias to a flawed market system is to blame.
A few years back, The Story Exchange set out to find how many public companies had women founders — whether that was an individual woman or an all-women team or a co-ed team. While we contacted several researchers and the largest U.S. stock exchanges — the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq — we either received no response, or contacts had no helpful information. Since then, at least one other media company, Business Insider, has also tried researching this. (Here’s its roundup.)
Below is our list of public companies founded or co-founded by women entrepreneurs, which we update periodically. While there are thousands of publicly traded companies, we were only able to find 31 companies that had women involved from the very beginning.
Please drop us a line at [email protected] if we have excluded any women-founded public companies.
1. Cisco Systems
Founded in 1987 by Sandy Lerner and her now ex-husband, Leonard Bosack. The multinational company makes routers and other networking hardware.
IPO Date: Feb. 16, 1990
Employees: 74,200
Location: San Jose, California
Revenue: $49.33 billion
2. Estee Lauder
Founded in 1946 by Estee Lauder and her husband, Joseph Lauder. The company specializes in cosmetics.
IPO Date: Nov. 25, 1995
Location: New York
Employees: 46,000
Revenue: $11.824 billion
3. BlackRock
Founded in 1988 by Sue Wagner. The investment management firm provides risk and fixed-income institutional asset management services.
IPO Date: 1999
Employees: 13,900
Location: New York
Revenue: $14.2 billion
[Related: Why an Ex-Fisherwoman Cares That Women Business Owners Are Ill-Prepared for Retirement]
4. Siebert Financial Inc.
Founded in 1967 by Muriel Siebert. The brokerage firm specializes in trading and investments.
IPO Date: Feb. 16, 1999
Employees: 80
Location: New York
Revenue: $25.7 million
5. Urban One
Founded in 1980 by Cathy Hughes. Urban One is a multi-media company that engages in radio broadcasting franchise business.
IPO Date: May. 6, 1999
Employees: 1,058
Location: Silver Springs, Maryland
Revenue: $434.6 million
6. Advaxis
Founded in 2002 by Dr. Yvonne Paterson. It is a biotechnology company dedicated to immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases.
IPO Date: Aug. 5, 2005
Employees: 58
Location: Princeton, New Jersey
Revenue: $6.1 million
7. iRobot
Founded in 1990 by Helen Greiner along with fellow MIT students Colin Angle and Rodney Brooks, who were making robots for fun. The company aims to make technology easily accessible for the private sector.
IPO Date: Nov. 9, 2005
Employees: 528
Location: Bedford, Massachusetts
Revenue: $505 million
8. Marrone Bio Innovation
Founded in 2006 by Pamela Marrone. The company aims to enhance the agricultural industry by producing natural biopesticides.
IPO Date: Aug. 2, 2013
Employees: 103
Location: Davis, California
Revenue: $18.6 million
[Related: Learn how Pam Marrone started up in this video and article]
9. Veracyte
Founded in 2006 by Bonnie Anderson. The company conducts molecular testing with an end goal of lowering the price of effective healthcare.
IPO Date: Oct. 30, 2013
Employees: 107
Location: San Francisco
Revenue: $85.9 million
10. Glycomimetics
Founded in 2003 by John Magnani and Rachel King. Glycomimetics designs and develops natural molecule-therapy in order to fight cancer.
IPO Date: Jan. 1, 2014
Employees: 40
Location: Rockville, Maryland
Revenue: $20,070
11. Care.com
Founded in 2006 by Sheila Lirio Marcelo. The company compiles care providers online and allows customers to search for babysitters, nannies and adult care providers.
IPO Date: Jan. 23, 2014
Employees: 429
Location: Waltham, Massachusetts
Revenue: $109.7 million
12. Store Capital
Founded in 2011 by Catherine Long, Christopher Volk, Michael Bennett and Michael Zieg. The company provides real estate mortgage and leasing services for single-tenant residential properties.
IPO Date: Nov. 14, 2014
Employees: 80
Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
Revenue: $449.6 million
13. Jaguar Animal Health
Founded in 2013 by Lisa A. Conte. Jaguar Animal Health provides natural prescription products designed to promote gastrointestinal health in both humans and animals.
IPO Date: May. 13, 2015
Employees: 37
Location: San Francisco
Revenue: $4.4 million
14. Caladrius Biosciences
Found in 2006 by Catherine Vaczy. Caladrius Biosciences develops stem-cell therapies for the treatment of various diseases.
IPO Date: Jun. 8 2015
Employees: 22
Location: Basking Ridge, New Jersey
Revenue: $27.4 million
15. Catabasis
Founded in 2008 by Jill C. Milne and Michael Jirousek. The pharmaceutical company researches drugs specifically designed to treat inflammation.
IPO Date: Jun. 25, 2015
Employees: 34
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Revenue: $500,000
16. Sunrun
Founded in 2007 by Lynn Jurich and Ed Fenster. The solar power company charges customers a monthly fee to cover the installation of solar panels and other equipment.
IPO Date: Aug. 4, 2015
Employees: 3380
Location: San Francisco
Revenue: $205 million
[Related: 3 Solutions from Women to a Staggering Plastic Problem]
17. Amplify Snack Brands
Founded in 2010 by Pamela Netzky and Andrew Friedman. The company offers healthier, non-GMO alternatives to typical snack brands.
IPO Date: Sep. 4, 2015
Employees: 45
Location: Austin Texas
Revenue: $137.5 million
18. Editas Medicine
Founded in 2013 by Jennifer A. Doudna, along with Feng Zhang and J. Keith Joung. The genome-editing firm research and develops therapies for treating genetic based diseases.
IPO Date: Jun. 2, 2016
Employees: 112
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Revenue: $317.3 million
19. Myovant Sciences
Founded in 2016 by Lynn Seely. Myovant Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company that develops therapeutics for endocrine disorders.
IPO Date: Oct. 27, 2016
Employees: 9
Location: London
Revenue: $2.5 million
20. Blackline
Founded in 2001 by current CEO Therese Tucker (who also stands out for her light pink hair). BlackLine Systems develops cloud-based software for accounting and finance departments.
IPO Date: Oct. 28, 2016
Employees: 740
Location: Woodland Hills, California
Revenue: $206.1 million
21. StitchFix
Founded in 2011 by Katrina Lake and Erin Morrison Flynn. The online styling company aims to help customers find clothing that fits their personal style and then mails it directly to their front door.
IPO Date: Nov. 2017
Employees: 5,500
Location: San Francisco
Revenue: $318.3 million
[Related: Building a Fashion Business Shaped by Faith and Community]
22. Eventbrite
Founded in 2006 by Julia Hartz, along with Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage. Eventbrite serves as a means to organize local events, to sell/ buy event tickets, and to RSVP.
IPO Date: Sep. 20, 2018
Employees: 983
Location: San Francisco
Revenue: $294.5 million
23. Twist Bioscience
Emily Leproust and Bill Banyai founded the synthetic DNA manufacturer in 2013.
IPO Date: October 30, 2018
Employees: 400
Location: San Francisco
Revenue: $54.2 million
24. Sunrun
Sunrun is a solar energy company that was co-founded in 2007 by Lynn Jurich, Ed Fenster, and Nat Kreamer.
IPO Date: August 5, 2015
Employees: 4,800
Location: San Francisco
Revenue: $182.2 million
25. Cortexyme
In 2012, Casey Lynch co-founded this biopharmaceutical company that focuses on developing treatments for degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
IPO Date: May 8, 2019
Employees: 23
Location: San Francisco
Revenue: $167 million
26. The RealReal
Founder Julia Wainright launched the luxury consignment shop in 2011.
IPO Date: June 28, 2019
Employees: 1,286
Location: San Francisco
Revenue: $293.2 million
27. Annovis Bio
This company’s focus is drug development to treat neurological diseases such as dementia. Maria L. Maccecchini founded the company in 2008.
IPO Date: January 29, 2020
Employees: 2
Location: Berwyn, Pennsylvania
Revenue: $676,000
28. Ayala Pharmaceuticals
Roni Mamluk founded the company, which makes therapies for rare genetic cancers, in 2017.
IPO Date: May 8, 2020
Employees: 29
Location: Israel
Revenue: $2.3 million
29. Athira Pharma
Like Annovis Bio, this company also develops treatments for neurological diseases. Leen Kawas founded the company in 2011.
IPO Date: September 18, 2020
Employees: 20
Location: Seattle
Revenue: $6 million
30. Amesite
Ann Marie Sastry founded her artificial intelligence software company in 2017.
IPO Date: September 25, 2020
Employees: 9
Location: Detroit
Revenue: $59,700
31. Bumble
This dating app, launched by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, reports over 40 million monthly users. (Read more about Bumble’s IPO here.)
IPO Date: February 11, 2021
Employees: 70
Location: Austin, Texas
Revenue: $417 million
Candice Helfand-Rogers contributed to this article.
