Boston is home to exceptional tech talent and a storied history of innovation, particularly in biotech, but what really sets the city’s startup ecosystem apart is its positive climate for women. In Massachusetts generally the number of women in tech grew at a 21.4% rate between 2009 and 2013, putting the state second nationally by this measure. In Boston specifically, 29% of startup founders are female, second only to Chicago, according to the Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking report. The leaders of several local ecosystem standouts such as Care.com are female, and when a local journalist recently attempted to pull together an exhaustive list of Boston startups led by women that raised venture funding in the previous decade, the crowdsourced effort came up with 164 women at 154 companies. The prominence of female founders shows up in the statistics on where VC dollars are going. According to Alice Rossiter, founder of live stream experience startup Alice’s Table, in Boston more than 10% of companies “invested in by some top venture capital firms are women founded.” Crunchbase puts the figure at 9%. Whichever number is correct, both favorably compare to a national average of 3% of VC dollars going to female founders. Boston is also home to several women-founded venture capital firms like Boston Seed Capital, Victress Capital, and Glasswing Ventures.