Photo: Aunt Owwee

A report out this week from the University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Research should be of particular interest given our Women in Tech panel discussion tonight in downtown Seattle. The report found that women-owned businesses made up 22 percent of entrepreneurs seeking angel financing in the first half of this year, while six percent of women actually received financing during that period.

That's a low percentage, according to researchers at the university which has been conducting research on angel investing since 1980. But the report also concludes that the percentage of women raising angel money is in line with the overall market yield rate. And the numbers appear to overlap with earlier studies on women-owned businesses raising venture capital financing, studies which show fewer than 10 percent of women are pulling in outside capital for their businesses.

Meanwhile, the report noted that women angel investors made up 15 percent of the market. (The Seattle area may be ahead of the curve on that front, with an active angel group here of female investors: Seraph Capital. The organization is celebrating its 10th anniversary as the first all women angel group in the U.S.)

Access to capital is a key issue for any startup organization, and it is likely to be a topic of conversation tonight as entrepreneurs, researchers and engineers from the Seattle tech community gather at the W Hotel.

The report from the University of New Hampshire is slightly more encouraging for women than one produced nearly 10 years ago by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners and Wells Fargo. It found that 38 percent of U.S. businesses are owned by women, but just two percent of them receive equity financing.

A more detailed report from 2004 from the Kauffman Foundation found found that between 1997 and 2000 women entrepreneurs accounted for seven percent of deals and five percent of total investment dollars. And it noted that just nine percent of management-track venture capitalists were female.

This week's report from the Center for Venture Research also dug into the overall angel market for the first half of the year, noting that total investments dropped 27 percent to $9.1 billion. That's not a huge surprise since the rotten economy has taken a toll on the portfolios of many angel investors.

But, interestingly, the report showed a six percent increase in total number of ventures receiving angel financing. That follows trends in the venture capital business, since it is taking less money to get some new companies off the ground. And like VCs, angels appear to be looking at more established ventures.

The report found that investments in the companies at the earliest stages of development dropped 19 percent during the first half of the year.

In terms of sector focus, the healthcare/medical devices category was on top with 28 percent of all investments. That was followed by software (14 percent), electronics/hardware (14 percent), industrial/energy (13 percent), and retail (8 percent).

[Flickr photo via Aunt Owwee]