Venture capital in women-run startups has been lagging behind the entire market, while cross-sector companies have cut their diversity, equity and inclusion work, and things seem to be getting tougher than ever for female founders.
But the data tells another story for 2024 – at least according to this report by European venture platform Women Foundry: Venture capital for startups founded by European women fell 12% in 2024 from the same period last year, but overall investment with overall investment fell 11%.
It is worth noting that more women are creating deep technology startups than men in the field. The report is called Women’s Innovation Index 2025found that the number of female founders is increasing due to the department’s links to the academia, where women tend to be more equally represented. About 33% of all venture capital raised by female entrepreneurs in Europe are entering deep technology startups, 2% higher than gender-understood startups. Key areas of innovation include synthetic biology, generative AI and drug development.
In the report, Female Foundry surveyed more than 1,200 female founders, female investors and executives, as well as ecosystem participants in 35 private equity firms, venture capital associations, and 20 European countries. It is worth noting that female founders calculated startups with at least one female co-founder, which greatly increased the sample size of startups considered in this report, while other reports refer only to all female founding teams saying “startups created by women.”
Several surveys last year generally believed that the number of female founders continued to significantly outpace men, while the entire woman founding team Raise only 2.2% of venture capital Allocated for 2024.
“I started indexing because I realized that the 2% number of startups that women create is not detailed enough,” he said. agata nowickafounder Female casting The author of the report told TechCrunch. “I wouldn’t be included in that statistic because as an entrepreneur, I have a male co-founder. We should consider more diverse metrics.
Deep technical indicators are exciting, but Nowicka believes that more women in academic settings need to be encouraged to engage in entrepreneurship. “There is still some stigma in startups entering academia,” she said.
She noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has helped create a higher competitive environment for women in the technology sector, as wider industries are forced to open up.
“As the founder of 2016, most venture capitalists don’t even have websites and no landing pages. “Many events are held privately,” she said. “The venture capital industry has changed during the common period due to the investment boom in 2021-2022. VCs are generally easier to get women […] Because they need transaction flow and become more competitive. ”
Here are some interesting Nuggets from this report:
- European women-based businesses raised €5.76 billion in 2024, marking a 12% drop in the €6.56 billion raised by these companies in 2023.
- The health, fintech and food sectors are the most venture capital investments invested with female founders.
- The seed stage is the biggest success female founders have seen, with rising round sizes of startups created by women growing 7% in each stage, compared to a 7% increase in 2023.
- In 2024, more than 80% of the 50 largest funds raised by startups created by women are people with scientific backgrounds in areas such as synthetic biology (€282.4 million), generation AI (€221.8 million), and drug development (€169.9 million).
- The UK, France and Germany rank the highest in the rankings of female founding companies investments, while Finland and Denmark have the highest investment ratio, allocated to such startups.
