Women in Startups: What It’s Like to Be a Female Entrepreneur in 2025
This Friday-> A data-backed overview of how the startup world treats women who want to build companies. [5 min reading]
On Startup Salad I break down a business book’s key takeaways in a simple, digestible format, just like a good salad!
Hey, it’s Fede!
If you're into startups like I am, you know how it goes:
After a full day with investors and founders, you sit down for dinner with friends... and end up talking about startups. Again. 😅
The other night at dinner, we started talking about how the founder experience changes depending on whether you're a man or a woman.
So I asked myself: If I were FedericA instead of FedericO... would it be different to be a founder?
I started studying the topic deeply.
What I found was surprising, tough to swallow, and worth sharing.
NOTE: this topic is way too complex to cover with just one book.
So I decided to pull insights from multiple sources, all listed at the end of this article.
Enjoy the read.
1. Why it’s important to study this topic 🔍
Before we begin, I want to explain why this topic matters and why it's worth taking the time to explore and discuss it:
It’s a matter of fairness. No one should be forced to become an entrepreneur, but everyone should have the chance to play the game.
It affects economic growth. If more people can create value, and it's not limited to a small slice of society, the entire economy benefits.
It leaves room for misinformation. When we avoid a topic because it feels uncomfortable to study/discuss it, someone louder (and usually less informed) will try to push their version of the story. If you don’t have the tools to respond, that’s a problem.
2. What’s the situation? (Brace yourself) 💸
In 2024, global VC funding hit $289B [1].
Here’s how it was split [1]:
🧍♀️ Female-only teams → 2.3% ($6.7B)
🧍♂️ All-male teams → 83.6% ($241.9B)
🧑🤝🧑 Mixed-gender teams → 14.1% ($40.7B)
Female-only teams got only 2.3% of capital, despite representing 6.4% of total rounds.
That’s what we call a double gap.
Now look at the average round size:
Women-only founded→ $5.2M
Men-only founded→ $11.7M
And no, it doesn’t get better as the startup grows.
Female-only teams raise:
3.2% at Seed
2.7% at Series A
2.2% at Series B
1.8% at Series C+
Let that sink in.
3. Let’s go deeper, but keep it cool 🤔
Now that we’ve got a big-picture view, let’s dig in a bit.
Sooooo, from what we saw above, there’s clearly a difference.
A huge, factual, undeniable difference.
But it’s important to stay clear-headed.
When you come across reports on the topic, take them with a grain of salt, and analyze them carefully.
For example: you might have come across a pretty famous report called
“Why Women-Owned Startups Are a Better Bet” by BCG and MassChallenge [2].
Disclaimer: I’m not here to talk badly about their work.
I love Boston, the Boston Marathon, and every lawyer from Boston. Peace and love. ✌️
But but but but let’s look at one of the infographics they shared [2]:
See anything odd?
What jumps out is this:
Women received less than half the funding, yet managed to generate about 10% more revenue.
So... women are a better bet?
Maybe. But let’s not jump to conclusions too fast.
Two quick points:
The study is based on 350 startups. Not exactly a massive sample.
There’s no sector breakdown, which is kind of a big deal.
Why?
Because men and women are not evenly distributed across industries
And different industries come with very different risk profiles.
As shown in the chart below [3], men and women often follow different educational paths.
And your degree strongly shapes the kind of startup you’re likely to build.
This affects the level of risk in building the startup.
For example: a SaaS tool built by a few computer science students (statistically more likely to be guys) from their bedroom over a weekend is not the same as a biotech project based on 10 years of research from a life sciences lab (more likely to involve more women).
So maybe the BCG–MassChallenge report is actually showing a difference in sector performance, not in founder gender.
There’s nothing wrong with celebrating good numbers.
But before trusting the headline, make sure you understand what’s behind.
That’s the point: stay sharp, ask questions.
And now that we’ve seen how men and women tend to launch startups in different industries [16], let’s take a closer look at how gender, sector, funding, and outcomes are all connected.
4. Where do women “lead”? 🧪
As mentioned earlier, some industries have more women founders than others.
Here’s where women are “leading”, based on the percentage of startups with at least one female founder [1]:
Beauty and Personal Care → 52.3%
(Side note: Hailey Bieber’s company Rhode was recently sold for $1B to e.l.f. [4], Brava!)EdTech → 34.7%
Healthcare services → 31.2%
At least here it sounds promising?
Well… not really.
Even in the sectors where women are most present, female-led startups receive disproportionately less funding.
Here’s the VC funding going to female founders in those same sectors [1]:
Beauty and Personal Care → 38.7%
EdTech → 21.5%
Healthcare services → 17.5%
Ouch.
5. Where women don’t lead, it gets worse 🕳️
Let’s talk about the other side of the gap.
Some sectors are basically no-go zones for women founders [1]:
AI → 20% [9]
Cybersecurity → 9.7%
SaaS → <16%
And guess what?
These are the exact sectors that attract the biggest funding rounds.
Here’s a painful comparison:
AI
Total raised in 2024: $131.5B [8]
Female-founded: 20% [9]
Median Series A: $13M [7]
Cybersecurity
Total raised in 2024: $11.6B [5]
Female-founded: 9.7% [1]
Median Series A: $18.5M [1]
Beauty Tech (THE female led sector)
Total raised in 2024: $500M+ [6]
Female-founded: 52.3% [1]
Median Series A: $8.7M [1]
Luckily, in fields like biotech, where more women graduate and the industry is going well, we can find better numbers.
Biotech
Total raised in 2024: $70B [11]
Female-founded: 25% [10]
Considering what we saw in the paragraph 3, universitiy courses with more male students often lead to sectors that get more VC money.
So… is it just about what you study?
If a woman studies computer science, will she have the same chances as a man to build a startup?
Let’s slow down.
Time to go one level deeper.
6. The problems women face 🧱
A spectre is haunting the startup ecosystem, the spectre of biases.
Startups are built on human relationships with clients, co-founders, investors, and partners.
And in every one of these, bias can jump in.
Researchers have studied this for years (f.e. Financing the Next VC-Backed Startup: The Role of Gender [12]).
Most studies point to the same conclusion:
Bias exists. And it’s everywhere.
Here are the main ones:
1. Evaluation bias
Startups led by men and women are often evaluated differently. [12]
Studies show that gender can influence the type of questions investors ask and how they perceive the potential/risks of a team.
2. Team formation bias
Men tend to co-found with other men. Women are more likely to build mixed teams. [13]
Considering the image above, and since men statistically more often have STEM backgrounds that better match what startups typically need [3], it’s often easier for them to build a founding team compared to women.
3. VC leadership bias
According to Harvard Kennedy School [14] only 11% of investing partners in the US are women.
And this matters because who’s at the table in VC firms affects funding decisions [15]:
Women investors are 2x more likely to fund startups with a female founder.
And 3x more likely to invest in companies led by a female CEO.
So yes, the system itself is part of the problem.
The fact that there are few women in STEM universities, startups, and VC firms creates real challenges for women trying to break into this world.
So, let’s see what we can do about it.
7. What needs to change next 🔮
Okayyy, good (well, kind of).
We’ve seen that Federica, stepping into a mostly male world, will likely face many challenges.
So, what can we actually do to improve the situation?
Let’s try to answer, even if it’s not simple.
Some solutions are already working:
For founders:
As we saw in paragraph 2, the percentage of men and women in academic fields, especially STEM, varies a lot.
Clearly, increasing the number of women in STEM would grow the pool of women entrepreneurs.How?
Getting girls more involved in STEM activities early on, exposing them to diverse role models beyond the traditional ones, and offering targeted STEM scholarships for women, all help.
For VCs:
Funding quotas and reporting, as we saw in paragraph 6, more women in VC firms would boost investment in female founders.
But attracting women organically is difficult and takes a lot of time.
That’s why there is growing discussion about introducing mandatory quotas, either for the percentage of women in VC teams or the percentage of funding that goes to female-led startups.There’s also a lot of debate about requiring VCs to publicly report the gender diversity of their investments.
At the moment, though, most of this is just talk. Only large companies and listed corporations are actually required by law to publish these kinds of diversity reports.Dedicated pitch events & incubators/accelerators
There are many incubators, accelerators, and VCs that focus only on investing in female-led startups.
Just do a quick search and you’ll find plenty of examples.To be honest, I haven’t found solid reports proving the positive impact of these programs on the startup ecosystem, but that’s probably because many of them haven’t been around long enough.
These three solutions are among the most effective, but they also come with side effects:
Fighting discrimination with new forms of “discrimination”, like legal quotas or mandatory requirements, can create its own set of problems.
These incentives can also create impostor syndrome for some founders [17], potentially leading to further problems.
Of course, there’s a price to pay. But that’s how it goes, side effects, even negative ones, are part of the game: any time you try to shake up the status quo, there will be a bit of debate and discomfort.
What really matters is keeping these topics alive and in the open, not hiding them away just because they’re sensitive.
8. Can Federica become a successful entrepreneur? 🚀
The answer is yes. Absolutely.
But it’s also true that along the way, she’ll face challenges that Federico might never encounter.
To balance this out, the best advice is to take full advantage of programs designed to support women founders.
It won’t be easy, but she will make it happen!
P.S.: If you have other reports or perspectives to share, I’d love to hear them.
Resources: 📚
Women in VC & Startup Funding: Statistics & Trends (2025 Report)
https://ff.co/women-funding-statistics-2025Why Women-Owned Startups Are a Better Bet
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/why-women-owned-startups-are-better-bet
Bachelor’s degrees earned by women and Men
https://econofact.org/are-women-reaching-parity-with-men-in-stem
Hailey Bieber's make-up brand sold to e.l.f. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp92kz02zmro
Big Rounds Push Cybersecurity Comeback
https://news.crunchbase.com/cybersecurity/big-rounds-comeback-4q-eoy-2024/
List of Funded Beauty Startups For 2025
https://growthlist.co/list-of-funded-beauty-startups-for-2025/
AI Valuation Multiples 2025
AI dominates venture capital funding in 2024
https://www.fdiintelligence.com/content/41641e67-f00f-53c0-97cb-464b3a883062
Study: Where Women Are Leading AI Development
https://www.fullstackacademy.com/blog/study-women-leading-ai-development
Closing the gender gap in biotech – a Q&A with Professor Victoria Hutter, CSO of ImmuONE
An Overview of Biotech Financing in 2024
https://www.biotechgate.com/an-overview-of-biotech-financing-in-2024/
Financing The Next VC-Backed Startup: The Role of Gender
Women-led startups losing across the board: from creation to funding, in all key European markets
https://www.bcg.com/press/13june2023-women-are-under-represented-in-the-european-startup-ecosystem
Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/wappp/research/past/venture-capital-entrepreneurship
All In Women in the VC Ecosystem
https://www.allraise.org/assets/main/pitchbook_all_raise_2019_all_in_women_in_the_vc_ecosystem.pdf
Another year, another record by female-led startups
https://www.startupticker.ch/en/news/another-year-another-record-for-female-led-startups
Impostor syndrome
That’s it for today, I hope you enjoyed it, BIG HUG.
The guidelines you need to build your startup:
The List of Startup Growth Resources: from the Best Books and Frameworks
Stop Feeling Unfocused And Unproductive. Build Atomic Habits, Unlock Founder Superpowers.
See you next Friday,
Federico Lorenzon
Great to see someone putting real work into the post, instead of working AI only!! Keep it up, Fede!
Super Interesting post, Federico! Even been a topic like this being acknowledged by a MAN means a lot. Thanks for putting it out there.