A brighter future for female founders?

This week we got the great news that ￡250m has been secured by the Invest in Women Taskforce to support female founders in the UK.?

Bringing together major financial players, including, Barclays M&G plc British Business Bank , Visa Foundation, BGF and Aviva . These businesses have all made a commitment to invest capital in female-founded businesses over the coming years. These funds will be deployed either directly by the organisations or through a dedicated ‘Women Backing Women’ fund, for which a fund manager selection process is currently underway.

The initiative, backed by Rt Hon Rachel Reeves aims to create one of the world’s largest investment pools for female-led and mixed-gender businesses. Reeves, the first female Chancellor, emphasized the significance of this effort, “We all, including myself as the first female Chancellor, have a responsibility to make the economy work better for women. Initiatives like the Invest in Women Taskforce funding pool are a fantastic example of the public and private sectors working together to unlock the potential of female founders and seize opportunities to drive economic growth.”

The investment pool will be allocated by female investment decision-makers across the UK.?

Why is this necessary??

You’d have to have been living under a rock not to know there’s a funding gap when it comes to female founders.

In the first half of 2024, all-female-founded businesses received just 1.8% (￡145m) of total equity investment, a drop from 2.5% in 2023.

Debbie Wosskow, OBE co-chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce and a multi-exit entrepreneur described this as a wake-up call, “Female entrepreneurs and investors have been sidelined for too long—they are two sides of the same coin. It’s time we rebooted the system and gave female investors the power to drive change. Funds like the ‘Women Backing Women’ fund are how we do it."

Wosskow celebrated the public and private sector collaboration, urging more investors to join the movement “This is only the beginning. We need more investors to come aboard and help us transform the landscape for female founders and investors alike.”

We also know from research shows that female investors are twice as likely to support female-led and mixed-gender businesses, breaking systemic barriers faced by women in entrepreneurship and investment, so it definitely looks like a brighter future?

But what about now??

We’re proud that around a third of the businesses raising on FundMyPitch have a female founder/co-founder, but that doesn’t mean its a plain-sailing journey to fundraising.?

Some of the current feedback we’ve had included ‘I don’t feel like I’m taken seriously when I’m pitching to a room full of men, it doesn’t help that my business is B2C too which is an additional challenge.’?

We’ve also had feedback from a female founder who said ‘Sometimes I’ve actually written emails and signed them from my husband (co-founder) as I know this will get a better reception from investors than it coming from me’?

Serena Fordham BA (Hons) CMgr FCMI ?? Founder of ProspHER said that overall, fundraising this year has been a 'frustrating' experience. "?We've been given conflicting information everywhere you turn, asked up front for payment to open doors, and generally jumped through hoops. We're investment-ready and have gained incredible traction, but we're?still being told we're too early. The goalposts keep moving. ProspHER will continue to focus on growing organically until the right funding comes our way to accelerate our growth."

We spoke to some fundraising founders in our wider community who shared this?

“As a female entrepreneur navigating the funding landscape it’s been an eye-opening process, whilst everyone is more aware unconscious bias still exists resulting in additional scrutiny. Accelerators like Natwst have been incredible allies in supporting us. Resilience and a clear vision have been my greatest tools and we’ll carry on paving the way for others like me.” Yvonne B. Founder of LocaeRise .?

Nara Daubeney PhD CEO & co-founder of Phaim Pharma is currently raising a SeriesA round, and acknowledges it’s been a tough environment to raise this year "and there are definitely added intricacies to being a female founder., Our approach has been to collect really supportive team members, advisors and directors - female founders need to find their tribe and lift each other up. It’s a different journey as a female entrepreneur so your network is key to a successful process, as well as staying focused on your core business and building a resilient, innovative, patient-centred life-sciences company. Excellent science with an outstanding team means you can prepare for even the most challenging environments"

We don’t need to wait?

Whilst the taskforce presents a great opportunity for the industry to do better when it comes to supporting female founders we don’t need to wait for this to kick in to make improvements.?

With over ￡10m of opportunities from female-led businesses on fundmypitch and at least a third of our virtual pitch spaces going to female founders we’re committed to doing our bit to closing this funding gap.?

If you’re looking for incredible businesses, with product market fit, S/EIS available register now, or get in touch for a list of opportunities.?