Alexis Maybank, co-founder of the shopping website Gilt Groupe Inc., says her 5-inch stilettos are meant to send a message: Being feminine and starting a technology company aren’t mutually exclusive.
She and Gilt co-founder Alexandra Wilson are part of a growing group of women at e-commerce companies tailored to specific areas, such as food or fashion, where the female perspective is seen as vital. SharesPost Inc., a site that tracks privately held companies, values Gilt at $2.4 billion, making it a leader among startups founded by women.
The rise of daily-deal services and other sites aimed at shopping niches are creating opportunities for female entrepreneurs, who are better represented in the retail and fashion industries than in Silicon Valley startups. Companies also are recognizing that women account for the majority of Web surfers and Internet shoppers, giving female executives an edge in gauging consumers and filtering what products to offer.
“Women are driving most of the consumer activity on the Web today,” said Aileen Lee, a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who devotes about half of her investment portfolio to startups founded by women. “They’re the majority of users on Facebook, on Twitter, on Zynga. That gives websites that figure out how to harness social media early on an advantage because they can grow more quickly.”
Women made up 56 percent of the 153.6 million U.S. users who visited social-networking sites or blogs in May, according to Nielsen Co. They accounted for 57 percent of visitors to online retail sites such as Amazon.com, ShopAtHome.com and Walmart.com, according to Nielsen.
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