Companies founded by women in The US raised $44.4 billion of the $170.59 billion in venture capital raised last year. Companies with all-female founding teams raised about $3.1 billion — or 1.8% — which is down from $5.1 billion (2.1%) in 2022 and from $7.3 billion ( also 2.1%) gathered in the 2021 bull market.
In fact, this is the lowest percentage of venture capital going to such groups since 2016, when they raised 1.6% of all venture capital. However, there is good news for mixed-gender founding teams. Such groups raised 26.1% of all venture capital raised this year, a significant jump from the 18.2% they raised last year. This follows the pattern that female founders still do better with a male co-founder in the mix.
Kyle Stanford, chief VC analyst at PitchBook, told TechCrunch+ that it’s hard to pinpoint a single reason why funding to female founders has declined somewhat, but added that the decline in deals that count for female founders follows broader trends. purchase. Otherwise, he said, the evidence shows there is still a long way to go before the market is seen as fair.
“Venture has had some tough years and the availability of capital in the market has decreased significantly. Overall, the VC market saw a decline of almost 20% in the number of deals and 50% in the value of deals between 2021 and 2023,” he said. “This is not meant to make activity in women-founded companies look better, but the context of market difficulties is important.”
Overall, less than 25% of all deals went to companies founded by women in 2023. The most popular category was software, where about $8.4 billion was invested, followed by B2B, SaaS, and pharma and CV . New York ranks first for where women receive the most offers, followed by San Francisco and Los Angeles.
“While it’s been a big market for a while, it’s starting to close the gap with the Bay Area in terms of investment count activity,” Stanford said. “New York has become a great market for founders of all types, and right now it shows through the high levels of VCs in companies founded by women.”
