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Female-Founded Startups Still Struggle to Get VC Funding


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Female-founded startups raised $25 billion in the first half of 2021, more than the total amount raised by women any full year prior.

But percentage wise, the amount of venture capital going to female entrepreneurs is lower in 2021 than it has been for the last five years. That's especially true for startups with all-female founding teams, which have raised just 2.3 percent of venture capital this year, according to Crunchbase. Startups with mixed-gender cofounders raised 11.7 percent of funding. In other words: 86 percent of venture funding still goes only to men.

"The landscape does seem to be better, but it's not really," says Pam Kostka, the CEO of All Raise, a nonprofit that supports female entrepreneurs. Funding numbers have been "flat at best," with some groups receiving less year-over-year.

Women still start businesses in far greater numbers than their share of VC funding would suggest. Women in the industry have been scratching their heads about how to improve these statistics for years.

From Wired
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