Although capital was tight, female founders raised significantly more money from investors in 2023 than in the previous year. The number of deals also increased.
Startups that have women on the team raised more money from investors, according to Pitchbook 2023. Getty Images/We Are
Something is happening when it comes to gender parity in the startup scene, but slowly: After last fewer women founded again Female founding teams now seem to be attracting more interest from investors. And this despite the fact that financing rounds declined overall in 2023 – in view of increased interest rates and investors taking a wait-and-see approach. That shows one current study by the data platform Pitchbookwhich surveyed how VC money is distributed across startup teams by gender.
The result: Last year, a total of 11.1 billion euros of the total risk capital invested in Europe flowed into startups (co-founded) by women. This corresponds to around a fifth (20.5 percent) of the total financing volume of startups in 2023. According to Pitchbook, the share was still 15.1 percent in 2022 – a record increase. Based on the total number of deals, women closed more than a quarter of them, around 2,400.
In Germany, female founders alone collected 1.2 billion euros from investors – in 226 deals. Great Britain and France are ahead, each with higher sums and more closings. The authors see the increase as a signal that female-led startups are gaining momentum. Nevertheless, there is “a long way to go” before VC activity adapts to European demographics.
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Due to the longer life expectancy, average people live in the EU around five percent more women than men. This development has not yet been reflected in the startup scene and thus also in the distribution of venture capital. After a Study of the Bosten Consulting Group In France, Great Britain, Spain, Germany and Sweden, around 22 percent of startups that launched in 2022 have at least one woman on the founding team.
Angel investors often invest in women-led startups
According to Pitchbook data, the fact that female founders have collected more than ten billion euros of the total VC money collected has only been the case since the record year of 2021. In contrast, startups founded by men have secured more than ten billion euros in financing rounds every year since 2015. Although female-led companies still make up a comparatively small part of the European VC ecosystem, according to the study authors, they have at least concluded a constant number of deals since 2018: at least 400 every year.
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What’s also interesting is that when it comes to investors, female business angels in particular seem to be more supportive of women’s ideas. According to Pitchbook, female angel investors have been involved in more than a quarter of all VC deals in the last three years that included both a female founder and an angel investment. According to the experts, they have an important role to play when it comes to giving women – especially in the early stages – access to venture capital. The number of female business angels active in Europe almost halved to 244 between 2022 and 2023, after increasing significantly in previous years.