by Poppy Harlow

On the ABC hit show Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary (also known as Mr. Wonderful) is as blunt as can be, and focused on one thing only: returns.

And where does he find most of that coming from these days? Women. Specifically, businesses run by women.

Of the 32 companies in his private portfolio — with sales of between $5 million and $300 million annually — he says 52% are run by women.

When O’Leary’s team did a year-end audit of the second half of 2014, he noticed a pattern:

“Not some of my returns, all of my returns were coming from companies either owned or run by women,” he told CNNMoney in a recent interview. “That was extremely interesting for me, because I’m not into, you know, gender warfare. I don’t care. I would give a goat money if I could make money with a goat.”

Turns out goats aren’t as savvy, though.

His companies with women at the helm include O’Leary Fine Wines, Wicked Good Cupcakes, GrooveBook, Bottle Breacher, Surprise Ride and Easy Daysies.

O’Leary boils the success of women-run companies down to this: “Women set goals that are achievable in business. They don’t take inordinate risk and set goals that nobody can achieve. When you set goals for your employees you can achieve, that generally builds morale. It gets better results.”

And he’s not the only one seeing those results.

VC firm First Round Capital found their investments in companies with at least one female founder performed 63% better than their investments in all-male teams, according to a report released last year.

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