female founders key stats

The Female Founders Fund’s “2025 Review of Funding for Female Founders” gives us a ten-year lens on what’s really shifted in the VC landscape for women - and what’s stayed stubbornly behind.

Some of the biggest takeaways:

• While funding to women-only founding teams has stayed flat around 2% of venture capital (ugh!!), women-led exits have almost doubled, rising from ~13% in 2014 to ~24% in 2024

• The number of female-led IPOs jumped significantly over the past 10 years: from just 2 in 2014 to 14 in 2024, nearly 9% of all IPOs

• Women in venture capital decision-making roles have made real gains: up to 17% in 2024, almost triple what it was in 2014

• Female-founded startups outperform their counterparts in terms of revenue generation and cost efficiency - just look at the charts below

And things are looking up. 2025 is off to a record-breaking start for female-founded exist. Rhode, founded by Hailey Bieber in 2022, was acquired by e.l.f. Beauty for $1 billion, just three years after launch. Touchland, the design-forward hand sanitizer brand founded by Andrea Lisbona, was acquired by Church & Dwight for $880 million after scaling to over $130 million in revenue. And Poppi, the prebiotic soda brand co-founded by Allison Ellsworth, was acquired by PepsiCo in a deal valued at $1.95 billion, after surpassing $500 million in annual sales.

We still have a way to go in terms of gender equity in the startup capital landscape, but time and time again women are proving that they are a worthwhile investment.