Maine is among top 10 states for women-led startups
Courtesy / Merchant Maverick
A map displays the top 10 states for women-led startups, according to a new analysis.
Maine is one of the 10 states where women-led startups fare the best and are most common, according to a new study.
The analysis, released Tuesday by small-business website MerchantMaverick, ranked Maine No. 10 nationally among the top states on the basis of nearly a dozen factors.
They included metrics from census data such as each state’s percentage of employers owned by women, the portion of the state workforce employed by women, the number of self-employed women, their average income and more. Criteria were also included to account for the effect of the pandemic, according to a news release.
Maine was the only state in the Northeast to crack the top 10. In fact, most of those states were in the western U.S., and California edged Maine to place No. 9.
Researchers at MerchantMaverick found that 1.7% of all women in western states own their own business, significantly above the national average of 1.4%.
Colorado ranked No. 1 in the comparison. The poorest-ranking states for women-led startups, according to the study, were Arkansas, No. 46; Iowa, No. 47; West Virginia, No. 48; Nebraska, No. 49; and Mississippi, No. 50.
“Certain states in the Great Plains and the Midwest and some states in the South don't offer women entrepreneurs similar opportunities to their male counterparts,” MerchantMaverick said in the release.
“In many cases, these lower-ranked states receive inadequate amounts of capital for venture-backed startups led by women. They also struggle to match the gender parity seen in higher ranked states.”
The website’s editor-in-chief, Julie Titterington, added, “We have to congratulate the top states for creating an environment that helps woman entrepreneurs thrive. And we hope that all 50 states strive to make our list in the future."
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