Startups with all-women founding teams raised just $1.4B in H1

U.S. startups with mixed-gender founding teams — meaning they have at least one female founder — raised $24.1 billion in the first half of 2023, which breaks down to $17.2 billion in Q1 and $6.9 billion in Q2, per the latest PitchBook data. The expectation is that funding to such companies will reach its second-highest total ever this year.

That’s a big deal, with PitchBook expecting the amount of capital allocated to mixed-gender teams this year to overtake last year’s sum. H1 2022 saw companies with founders of both genders raise $26.8 billion; they subsequently closed out the year with a total of $43.3 billion raised, which holds the current record as the second-highest amount of capital allocated to mixed-gender teams. The first was in 2021, in which such companies raised $59.6 billion overall.

Mixed-gender teams picked up 28.1% of capital raised in H1, which is up from raising 16.9% in H1 2022.

But startups with all-women founding teams are struggling to raise money this year and have picked up only $1.4 billion in H1. That’s $800 million in Q1 and $600 million in Q2. The last time companies with all-women founders raised such a low H1 amount was in 2017, when they picked up $1.2 billion. All-female-founded startups raised $3.1 billion in H1 2022, $4 billion in H1 2021 and even $1.8 billion in H1 2020.

With the venture market in retreat compared to prior highs, we need to understand how the ratio of capital raised by all-women-founded startups is evolving. All-women founding teams raised 1.6% of the capital allocated this H1, which is only a tad lower than H1 2022, when they picked up 1.9%. Regardless of the total amount all-women teams raise, the number rarely swings beyond 2%. It appears that the presence of a man on the team dramatically increases the amount of funding a woman founder receives.