The government-led ‘Investing in Women’ initiative has yielded limited progress in boosting funding for female founders.
- The latest report reveals only a 4% increase in deals for women-led companies compared to the industry average.
- Last year’s data shows a decline in investments in women-founded companies from 35% to 32% among initiative signatories.
- The number of organisations signing the code has grown from 204 in 2023 to over 250.
- Despite some strides, there remains a significant gender funding gap, as highlighted by industry leaders.
The ‘Investing in Women’ initiative, a government-sponsored scheme, was established to enhance funding opportunities for female entrepreneurs. Recent findings, however, indicate that the scheme has only managed to increase investment deals for women-led companies by 4% above the industry average. This highlights a limited progression towards the intended objective of the initiative.
An annual review of the initiative conducted by the Department for Business and Trade disclosed that a significant 68% of venture capital deals made by its signatories were directed towards companies founded by men. In comparison, only 32% were allocated to female-founded entities. This represents a decline from the previous year, where 35% of the deals from signatories benefited women-led ventures.
Since its inception in 2019, following insights from the Rose Review, the code has aimed to diminish one of the primary barriers for female entrepreneurs—access to funding. The voluntary nature of the agreement encourages signatories to improve women’s access to capital and requires them to report annually on the gender distribution of their investments.
The number of signatories to the code has shown an increase, growing from 204 organisations in 2023 to slightly over 250. This suggests a rising acknowledgment of the need to address gender disparity in venture capital allocations.
Despite these efforts, the progress remains insufficient as reflected by statements from key industry figures. Louis Taylor, CEO of the British Business Bank, remarked, “While some progress has been made across the venture capital sector to improve access to finance for female founders, there is still a huge amount more to do.” Concurrently, Jenny Tooth, Executive Chair of the UK Business Angels Association, pointed out more positive results amongst angel investors, where investments in women founders surpassed those in male founders for the first time.
The ‘Investing in Women’ initiative exemplifies partial progress but underscores the continuing need for efforts to bridge the gender funding gap.
