Women-led companies in EM are boxed out of the market for private equity and venture capital investment: Nine times out of 10, private equity and VC money in emerging markets is going to a company led by a guy. That’s the key takeaway from an International Finance Corporation study (pdf) that found that only one in ten companies to which private equity and venture capital commit capital are women-led — this as global assets under management by PE and VC outfits hits a record high of USD 3 tn.

And of those women-led companies that get funding, fewer will make it big: Women-led businesses get only 65% of the funding directed to male-led ones, indicating deep-rooted “subconscious biases” on the investor side of the table, the survey suggests. The authors write that “men believe external factors, such as difficulty finding qualified female talents and a lack of female interest in private equity” are to blame for the imbalance — this despite research indicating the opposite.