Enterprise funding in startups run by girls has at all times lagged the general market, and with corporations throughout sectors slicing again on their range, fairness and inclusion efforts, issues appear grimmer than ever for feminine founders.
However the information tells a distinct story for 2024 — a minimum of in accordance with this one report by European enterprise platform Feminine Foundry: Enterprise funding to startups based by girls in Europe declined 12% in 2024 from a yr earlier, but it surely was almost in step with the 11% lower in general enterprise funding.
Notably, girls who based deep tech startups are elevating greater than males are in that space. The report, dubbed Female Innovation Index 2025, discovered that the variety of feminine founders in deep tech is rising because of that sector’s hyperlinks to academia, the place girls are typically extra equally represented. About 33% of all enterprise capital raised by feminine entrepreneurs in Europe goes into deep-tech startups — 2% greater than gender-agnostic startups. Key areas of innovation embrace artificial biology, generative AI, and drug growth.
For the report, Feminine Foundry surveyed greater than 1,200 feminine founders, feminine buyers and executives, and over 35 personal fairness corporations, enterprise associations, and ecosystem gamers throughout 20 European international locations. It’s value noting right here that Feminine Founders counted startups that had a minimum of one feminine co-founder, which tremendously will increase the pattern dimension of startups thought of on this report, in comparison with different stories that solely check with all-women founding groups once they say “female-founded startups.”
A number of surveys final yr usually agreed that girls founders continued to be vastly outnumbered by males, with all-women founding groups elevating solely 2.2% of the enterprise capital allotted for 2024.
“I began the index as a result of I spotted that the oft-quoted 2% determine in regards to the variety of female-founded startups isn’t detailed sufficient,” Agata Nowicka, founding father of Female Foundry and the writer of the report, advised TechCrunch. “I might not have been included in that stat, as a result of as an entrepreneur, I had a male co-founder. We must be considering way more various metrics.
That deep tech metric is heartening, however Nowicka thinks girls in tutorial environments should be inspired extra to take up entrepreneurship. “There’s nonetheless a bit little bit of stigma connected to coming into a startup from academia,” she stated.
She famous that the COVID-19 pandemic had helped create a extra stage taking part in subject for ladies in tech as a result of the broader trade had been pressured to open up.
“As a founder in 2016, most VCs didn’t also have a web site or had only a touchdown web page. Many occasions have been held privately,” she stated. “The enterprise capital trade reworked throughout COVID due to the growth in funding throughout 2021-2022. VC grew to become general extra accessible to girls […] as a result of they wanted deal-flow, and it grew to become extra aggressive.”
Listed here are a couple of attention-grabbing nuggets from the report:
- Feminine-founded companies in Europe raised €5.76 billion in 2024, marking a 12% drop from the €6.56 billion these corporations raised in 2023.
- The well being, fintech and meals sectors see essentially the most enterprise funding going to startups with feminine founders.
- The seed stage is the place feminine founders see essentially the most success, and on common, spherical sizes raised by women-founded startups elevated 7% throughout levels in comparison with 2023.
- Greater than 80% of the 50 largest funding rounds raised by female-founded startups in 2024 went to these with scientific backgrounds in areas comparable to artificial biology (€282.4M), generative AI (€221.8M), and drug growth (€169.9M).
- The U.Okay., France, and Germany high the charts for funding in female-founded corporations, whereas Finland and Denmark have the best proportion of enterprise capital allotted to such startups.