According to Pitchbook data, funding for women-founded companies, including mixed-gender teams has declined in the first half (H1) of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
These companies secured $15.5 billion out of a total of $93 billion in investments, representing 17% of the total. This highlights a notable decrease from the $24.8 billion out of $87.7 billion, that was raised in the first half of 2023.
In 2024, the report revealed that companies with all-women founding teams have only secured 2.2% of the venture capital allocated for the year. This figure continues a longstanding trend, as all-women founding teams have not received more than 3% of venture capital funding since at least 2014.
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For the past four years, these teams have consistently raised about 2% of the available venture capital, even during periods when total capital allocated to U.S. startups reached unprecedented levels.
Pitchbook lead venture analyst Kyle Stanford told TechCrunch that the investment in women and diverse founders is also challenged by the current political climate.
“A majority of female-founded companies remain in the seed and early stage of the VC lifestyle. This can pose a problem as early-stage VC remains challenging, as we have seen many companies struggle to advance due to increased benchmarks for new rounds”, he added.
Despite ongoing challenges, there were positive signs in the latest venture capital data for women-led startups. Companies with all-female founding teams saw a slight year-over-year increase in funding, securing $1.1 billion in Q2 2024, up from $900 million in Q2 2023. This marked the highest quarterly funding amount for these women-founded companies, since Q2 2022 when they raised $1.5 billion.
Notably, in Africa startup funding for H1 2024, Africa investment tracker ‘The Big Deal, revealed that the distribution of funding remained heavily skewed towards male-led ventures. Only a fraction of the funding continued to go to female-focused and female-led startups with 85% of the funding going to ventures without a single female founder and 92% to companies with a male CEO.
This funding disparity further highlights the persistent challenges female entrepreneurs face in accessing capital. Female-founded ventures in Africa have for a long time continued to be heavily underfunded when compared to their male counterparts.
However, a report revealed that the gender investment gap, which was at an alarming 56x in 2022, witnessed a notable reduction to 36x in the first half of 2023. Experts noted that despite the challenges and disparities that persist, the positive momentum seen in female-founded ventures provides hope for a more inclusive and diverse startup ecosystem in Africa.