Female founders take the good with the bad in a challenging 2022

After the lofty heights that VC-backed companies reached in 2021, it was perhaps only natural that they’d come back down to earth in 2022.

As VC market conditions worsened throughout the year, female-founded companies in the US experienced similar lulls in deal activity, according to PitchBook’s All In: Female Founders in the US VC Ecosystem. However, female-founded companies appear to have not been disproportionately hurt by the decline in activity this year, unlike in previous slowdowns.

Companies with at least one female founder have raised about $38 billion in venture funding over 3,503 deals so far in 2022, while startups with only female founders have garnered $4.3 billion over 926 deals, according to PitchBook data. These both represent sharp declines from 2021, although they are still the second-highest annual totals on record.

While funding for female-founded companies has declined year-over-year, the share of female co-founded VC capital ticked up to 15.4% of total US VC funding so far in 2022, the highest it’s been since 2017. For female-only founded startups, however, that number is 2%, the lowest it’s been since 2016.

 

 

For more information and the latest data on US VC investment in female-founded companies, check out PitchBook’s Female Founders Dashboard.

Featured image by Drew Sanders/PitchBook News