Female-only founding teams secured 2.3% of the $289 billion invested globally in venture capital in 2024, according to reporting published by Nature. All-male teams captured 83.6% of the capital, while mixed-gender teams secured a 14.1% share.
Data compiled by London-based Founders Forum Group revealed that women encounter distinct obstacles during pitch meetings. Female founders are interrupted almost five times more frequently than men during pitch presentations. Investors also ask them questions focused on risk more than twice as often as male founders. Consequently, female founders spend an average of 7.4 months fundraising, compared with 5.2 months for male peers.
Disparities in venture capital
A separate report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that approximately 25 million women across advanced economies are denied opportunities to start and grow businesses. Globally, female-founded companies receive only about 2% of total venture capital funding. Female entrepreneurs are roughly 63% less likely to obtain venture funding than men, receiving on average 70% of the capital amounts male entrepreneurs secure.
The OECD report noted that UK gross domestic product could have been 12% larger in 2017 if women had started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men.
Founder experiences in biotech
Emma Yates co-founded Cambridge-based Proteotype Diagnostics in 2019 with her husband to develop an early cancer-detection method using the body's immune response. The company has raised approximately $6.89 million in grant and private capital, including a £75,000 Women and Innovation Award from Innovate UK. Proteotype is conducting a clinical trial with final results expected at the end of the year, preceding a planned Series A round.
Yates returned to work within five weeks of having her first child in 2022. She noted that innovation programmes should provide childcare and temporary operational cover to help early-stage science ventures maintain operational momentum during parental leave.
Grants and international expansion
Henriette Maaß co-founded NanoStruct in Würzburg, Germany, using gold nanostructures to detect contaminants such as bacteria. A transfer grant from Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy allowed her to leave a semiconductor role in 2021 and develop the technology. NanoStruct subsequently received a €75,000 grant from the European Union's Women TechEU programme, which requires female founders to hold top management roles and own at least 25% of company equity. The company now employs ten people.
In Thailand, Kitiya Vongkamjan co-founded Bangkok-based UniFAHS in 2020 to commercialize phage technology targeting food-borne pathogens. After receiving entrepreneurship training through the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, UniFAHS closed a $1.4 million funding round in 2024 backed by ADB Ventures to expand across southeast and South Asia. UniFAHS employs 20 people, and Vongkamjan plans to transition all experimental research from her Kasetsart University laboratory to the company's dedicated facility as operations scale.
