Female Biz Funding Trends

Sole Female Founders Raised $1B Less In 2020 Despite Record Venture Funding Surge In the US

U.S. startups overall raised a record $143 billion in 2020, up 12 percent over the previous year, but funding to venture-backed companies founded solely by female entrepreneurs dropped 22 percent during the pandemic year, Crunchbase data shows.

But American startups founded solely by female founders raised only $3.2 billion in 2020, down a billion dollars from $4.2 billion in 2019 — the peak year for funding to sole female founders — per Crunchbase data.

That drop in funding to sole female founders was particularly pronounced in the later-stage rounds, with seed and earlier stage funding amounts down just slightly year over year.

While these amounts will likely shift over time as funding rounds that occured last year are retroactively added to Crunchbase, the data highlights a dichotomy between funding trends for startups founded by male and female entrepreneurs. While there was a decrease in funding to sole female founders, funding to female/male co-founded companies increased marginally year over year in 2020.

For the complete report summary, see the link below: