Over the past decade female-founded startups made very notable and steady gains in receiving venture capital funding, but in its recently released report Pitchbook revealed how the pandemic has adversely impacted female-founders and female CEOs disproportionately. 2019 was record breaking for funding of female-founded startups in terms of the number of VC deals and dollars invested, however, as 2020 comes to a close, funding for female founded startups has dropped 31% from 2019, while their male-team counterparts saw just a 16% drop.
To appreciate the long term progress of women entrepreneurs, female founded startups in 2010 raised $2 billion and in 2019 (pre-COVID) they raised over $20 billion across 2,669 deals. In addition, the report showed that in the same period female founders saw faster increases in both deals (13% year to year) and overall value (9%) compared to their male counterparts (9% and 7%, respectively).
The report, published with support from Microsoft for Startups and Beyond the Billion shows some impressive achievements made by women entrepreneurs and women CEOs in their ventures:
- Female-founded startups hit a record 198 exits via IPO or acquisition in 2019, up from just 38 ten years ago. Most notable for that period, female-founded exits increased 16% year-over-year while male-founded exits declined by 2%, female CEO exit value went up 30% from 2019 through Q3 2020 while the male CEO declined 44% in the same time frame.
- Over a ten year straight trend, female-founded company exits continue to be faster than the broader market, 2018 being the exception, and female CEOs exited faster than their male counterparts.
- Despite the pandemic 2020 is tracking to be the tenth straight year that female-founded companies exited faster than the broader market.
“We hope clear data on the funding gaps and proven performance of female-founded startups will empower VCs and institutional investors to allocate more funds to these companies and prioritize placing women in decision-making roles within their own firms”, said Adley Bowden, VP of Research and Analysis at PitchBook.
The survey’s other results and full report title, “All In: Female Founders and CEOs in the US VC Ecosystem” may be found online.
Read about efforts to help women entrepreneurs of color to access more funding
