Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more.
While there’s a growing recognition of the untapped potential of women founders and increased awareness of the strong returns generated by women-led businesses, that hasn’t yet been matched by an increase in the proportion of investment going to them. Here we discuss the signals we see that suggest the tide is finally turning and we’re reaching a tipping point with Sarah Turner, co-founder and CEO of Angel Academe, the UK's leading angel network for women.
More female founders than ever
Around 10% of working-age women in the UK economy were early-stage entrepreneurs in 2023, compared to around 12% of men, according to the 2025 Global Entrepreneurship Monitoring survey. This means that close to half of entrepreneurs in the UK were women (46%), up from around 1 in 3 in 2018/19. There are now 1.6m female-owned businesses in the UK, 76% more than in 2003.
Operating across all technology & science sectors
There is a perception that women founders are only involved in “female-centric” businesses, with an emphasis on areas like fashion, beauty, food and family. We do see great companies in these sectors, but our experience at Angel Academe is that this is only a partial picture. Of the thousands of businesses we’ve looked at since 2014, we also see many that require deeply technical approaches and solutions. From agricultural pest detection (PheroSyn) to antibiotic resistance (Zonova), from flood prevention (Our Rainwater) to battery technology (Enough Energy), the companies we see and in which we invest deploy impactful deep tech solutions in profoundly important areas.
Female perspectives & “lived experience”
Women, of course, bring unique perspectives and innovative solutions to often under-served market challenges - sometimes in specifically female areas, for example healthcare or femtech. We work with founders with lived experience of the challenges they’re solving, from fertility (Béa Fertility) to menopause (Adora Health), pre-menstrual syndrome (Samphire Neuroscience) to urine collection (Forte Medical). Although only affecting women, they have huge societal and workplace implications as well as economic impact, and women founders understand the challenges from the inside.
Business & consumer trends
There is a growing demand for products and services that resonate with a more conscious customer base. Female founders are often better positioned to understand and cater to these evolving market needs, with women in general controlling the majority of household spending. We need to move beyond mere green-washing! Companies addressing product and supply chain transparency such as Provenance offer unique insights that can inform individual and family purchasing decisions and drive vital changes in consumer behaviour.
Wider societal impact
The future of work, family and individual health, education, environmental sustainability, food and energy security… We know that these are all vastly consequential areas, yet big tech all too often bypasses these, instead offering yet more routes to entertainment, distraction and consumer convenience, presenting both an opportunity cost and unforeseen negative side effects. We work with (and see many more) female-founded startups who ignore the siren call of the immediate, easy return and instead concentrate on driving genuinely positive societal impact, in the process creating thousands of new, meaningful jobs and, of course, in many cases providing a strong financial return for investors.
Performance & investment: a profound disparity
Various studies show that women run more capital efficient businesses and deliver higher Return on Investment (ROI) than male-founded startups. When the Boston Consulting Group analysed the investment and revenue data of 350 startups supported by MassChallenge over a 5-year period, they found that the women founded or co-founded startups raised an average of $935,000 in investment, less than half the average of $2.1 million raised by companies founded by male entrepreneurs. Despite this disparity, startups founded and cofounded by women actually performed better, generating 10% more in cumulative revenue over a five-year period - $730,000 compared with $662,000. And for every dollar of funding, these startups generated 78 cents, while male-founded startups generated just 31 cents.
A market inefficiency
You would think allocation of capital is rational. It isn’t. In the UK, Beauhurst reported that in Q1 2024, 86% of capital went to all-male founding teams; 12% to mixed gender founding teams and a mere 1.8% to all-female teams. The numbers in the US and Europe are very similar. Investing in female-founded startups is a strategic move to address a market inefficiency and unlock significant growth opportunities.
Time to act
According to Kauffman Consulting, venture funds with a female partner are three times more likely to invest in female founders. So first, the good news. There are now more women than ever entering VC (10% of senior professionals, according to BVCA). Meanwhile, more high net worth women are becoming early-stage investors thanks to bottom-up initiates like Angel Academe. And of course the UK has a great eco-system of female founder support, from accelerators and training programmes to informal peer-mentoring networks and government-backed grant funding. But we have a long way to go. It’s time to invest in the change you want to see, and investing in women-founded tech startups that address some of the most important challenges of our time is the place to start!
SyndicateRoom and Angel Academe recently launched a new EIS fund which will allow investors to make investments in the next generation of companies with female founders. You can find out more and make an investment on the Angel Academe EIS Fund page, or click the button below to view the brochure.
