RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Women who have founded startups are keeping pace with men in terms of venture capital funding so far this year – but the good news is tempered by the fact that they aren’t cutting into the VC gap with their male counterparts.
Kate Clark, in a post for PitchBook which is one of the top sources for tracking investor data, reports that U.S. female-founded companies have raised $7 billion through June 30.
But she also notes that overall VC funding – at more than $57 billion – is on track to top $100 billion for the first time since the “dot com” boom.
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At least women are ahead of the pace for VC deals in 2017 at $12.3 billion out of a total $82 billion in deals.
However, the percentage of female founder vs. male founder deals is coming in at a slightly lower percentage (12.5 percent) than the 15 percent of 2017.
“Overall, investment in female founders is keeping pace with the VC market as a whole,” Clark wrote. “A good thing, of course, but it doesn’t appear there will be an otherwise notable increase in investment in the space this year. It’s clear that there’s still a lot of work to be done before businesses founded by women are regularly pulling in an equitable portion of VC dollars.”
By the way, Clark also points out a distinction in statistics about female-led firms and venture funding:
