The Silicon Valley revelations emerged from a "bro culture" in which women face, at best, high barriers to becoming one of the few executives in the room. As of October women represented 21 percent of employees at venture capital firms and held just 11 percent of senior-level positions in the industry, according to Preqin, a provider of alternative-assets data.Behind this industry are institutional investorswho allocate billions of dollars to venture capital funds each year in hopes of reaping high returns from the bets made with their money. Among the most prominent are college and university endowments, which, following the lead of Yale University chief investment officer David Swensen, have adopted an asset allocation model emphasizing so-called alternative investments like venture capital.Thelatest survey of endowments by Commonfund and the National Association of College and University Business Officers found that those with more than $1 billion of assets maintained an average 7 percent allocation to venture capital.
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