Are You On Track To Miss Another Opportunity?

Article by Angad Manik | Strategy & Project Partner 🔍 | Making People Understand & Use Generative AI 🚀 | Founder | Raising Awareness About the Impacts of Unconscious Biases

European venture capital reached a record high of $52 billion in 2024, yet only 12 percent – a relatively low percentage – went to firms with at least one woman in a founding role. Global figures for female-only teams stand at 2.3 percent and have remained largely unchanged (TechCrunch, Mar 2025).

The statistics are stark:

• Britain’s deep market directs only 1.8 percent of £8 billion in equity to women.
• Silicon Valley’s larger $200 billion pool funnels barely two percent to all-female lineups.

The headline numbers are bleak, and the local splits are even starker:

• London employs women in 29 percent of tech roles, yet grants them roughly three percent of venture capital.
• Berlin shows 18 percent of women among IT specialists and four percent of national checks.
• Paris tracks the continental average at 20 percent female talent but still sends fewer than five percent of euros to all-female teams.
• Stockholm performs best, posting a 23-to-29 percent female tech workforce and fifteen percent of funding, still far from any true match.
• Across the Atlantic, San José records 29 percent of women in core tech posts and, again, two percent of venture dollars for exclusively female founders.

Attitude Underwrites the Gap

A randomized-response survey of 361 international VCs, published in Venture Capital, reports a concerning mindset:

• 26.9 percent of investors believe women’s participation in founding teams is overrated.
• 15.3 percent label women as poor entrepreneurs.
• 11.9 percent flat-out refuse to invest in women-led ventures.
• Bias peaks among male, seed-stage, and corporate investors (Koch et al., 2025). This early skepticism slashes potential: once a founder’s first check prices low, subsequent rounds compound the discount instead of closing it.

The Commercial Data Tell a Different Story: Revenue Efficiency, Not Ideology

A 2025 BCG review notes that women-led startups generate 78 cents of revenue for every funding dollar, versus 31 cents for male-led peers.

Consumer power further amplifies this edge:

• Women make up about 85 percent of purchasing decisions.
• They will hold 75 percent of discretionary spend by 2028 (Deloitte, 2024).

Lower demand for their rounds therefore carries a twin benefit: cheaper entry and founders attuned to the bigger wallet.

Multiple Discounts Surface Along the Chain: Unlocking Genuine Alpha

With limited bidder pressure, valuations for female teams sit ten to thirty percent below sector medians. This markup crystallizes once later investors arrive, delivering an automatic multiple to early believers. That spread represents genuine alpha, not charity.

The arbitrage widens in sectors where female insight first locates unmet needs:

• Europe’s femtech companies attracted about €334 million last year against a €150 billion women’s health spend.
• Household climate solutions, caretech, and women-centric wealth platforms remain underfinanced amid robust demographic pull.

Investors distracted by AI mania – forty percent of fresh U.S. capital and twenty percent of European cash now targets large-language plays – are missing these lower-beta, consumer-anchored bets.

Policy Sweetens the Calculus

Supportive policies further enhance the investment case:

• The WomenTechEU scheme offers non-dilutive grants of €75,000 to deeptech companies led by women.
• German and French digital initiatives co-invest on similar terms.

Public money covers thirty to seventy percent of first checks and softens the downside. On the supply side, about thirty trillion dollars are forecast to land in women’s hands through inheritance this decade, fueling an expanding angel cohort. Funds that demonstrate a credible female-founder record now are primed to raise future vehicles from this rising LP pool.

What Should an Investment Committee Do Today?

1. Start by measuring internal bias with an anonymous cross-sectional poll. Data removes doubt.
2. Next, carve ten to fifteen percent of the coming fund for female-led theses; small enough to respect allocation limits, large enough for statistical weight.
3. Syndicate with independent European partners, identified as the least biased group, to share sourcing tricks and optics.
4. Report gender-split IRR and TVPI in quarterly notes. Numbers persuade limited partners faster than vision statements.
5. Finally, layer public grants on private tickets to lift blended returns.

Timing Matters: A Rare Enduring Edge

Median Series A prices have slid under higher rates, broadening entry discounts already present for underbid female rounds. An attention squeeze compounds the dynamic: as more capital chases AI, fewer scouts look elsewhere, leaving valuations slack in overlooked categories. In markets where too much money crowds the same themes, differentiated deal flow is one of the rare enduring edges.

Europe holds the dry powder, policy levers, and talent to correct a multi-billion-euro misallocation. Only pattern recognition stands in the way. Treating gender balance as an alpha thesis, not a checkbox, turns bias into basis-point spread – cheaper stakes, faster revenue curves, historically higher odds of efficient exits. That edge remains largely uncontested, and the clock is running.

References 

1. Boston Consulting Group. (2018, July 30). Why womenowned startups are a better bet.https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/why-women-owned-startups-are-better-bet 
2. Butcher, M. (2025, March 20). VC investment in European startups passed $52B in 2024, continuing longterm growth trend. TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/20/vc-investment-in-european-startups-passed-52b-in-2024-continuing-long-term-growth-trend/ 
3. CoworkingCafe. (2025, March 5). 2025’s best metros for women in tech. https://www.coworkingcafe.com/blog/best-metros-for-women-in-tech/ 
4. European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency. (2025, February 12). Winners of the second Women TechEU open call. https://eismea.ec.europa.eu/news/winners-second-women-techeu-open-call-2025-02-12_en 
5. Eurostat. (2024). ICT specialists in employment – Statistics explained. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/ICT_specialists_in_employment 
6. Kabir, F. (2024, January 12). Femaleled firms outperform rivals. So why is raising cash so hard? The Times. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/female-led-firms-outperform-rivals-finance-s235q6dw5 
7. Koch, L. H., Berger, E. S. C., & Kuckertz, A. (2025). Gender bias and discrimination towards women entrepreneurs by venture capitalists – A randomized response survey. Venture Capital. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691066.2025.2493049 
8. Tech Funding News. (2025, April 8). Female founders receive only 4% of funding in Germany: Experts explain why.https://techfundingnews.com/female-founders-receive-only-4-of-funding-in-germany-experts-explain-why/ 
9. Tech Talent Charter. (2024). Diversity in tech report 2024 [PDF]. https://www.techtalentcharter.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/diversity-in-tech-report-2024.pdf 
10. Women TechEU – European Commission. (2025). Programme overview.https://eismea.ec.europa.eu/programmes/european-innovation-ecosystems/women-techeu_en 
11. Bank of America Institute. (2024, March). The rising wealth of women.https://institute.bankofamerica.com/transformation/rising-wealth-of-women.html 
12. Bailey, S. (2025, March 3). VC funding for womenfounded businesses in Europe down 12% in 2024. Sifted. https://sifted.eu/articles/women-founded-startups-funding-2024 
13. Sifted. (2025, April 2). 30 femtech startups to watch, according to investors. https://sifted.eu/articles/30-femtech-startups-to-watch 
14. TechCrunch. (2025, February 11). AI investments surged 62% to $110 B in 2024 while startup funding overall declined 12%, says Dealroom. https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/11/ai-investments-surged-62-to-110-billion-in-2024-while-startup-funding-overall-declined-12-says-dealroom/