Women are founding companies at a phenomenal rate with women-owned firms growing by 1.5 times the rate of other small enterprises. About 43 percent of women leave the workforce after starting families and struggling for the elusive work-life balance and return to the workforce as entrepreneurs.

While a lot has been said and written about the growing body of female founders, there's an important tribe that's rising -- the women investors. The Diana Project study by Babson College reported that a female entrepreneur is more than twice as likely to get funded if a woman is part of the investor decision-making team; but beyond that, women bring an entirely different perspective to the pitch evaluation of the founder -- male or female.

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