Lithuania, Ireland stand out for Europe’s female founders

Lithuania and Ireland are among the European countries with the highest percentage of venture capital deals involving female founders over the past five years.

VC investment in European female-founded startups has been growing. This year, €8.6 billion has already been invested in European startups with at least one female founder across 1,439 deals, according to PitchBook’s European VC Female Founders Dashboard.

However, disparities remain in funding for women-led startups between individual countries. Europe’s largest VC hubs, which see the highest volume of deal activity, fall behind many other counties in their percentage of deals that involve female founders.

Much smaller ecosystems such as Lithuania and Hungary have registered higher participation, with female founders present in 28.5% and 25.9% of rounds, respectively. For comparison, Europe’s largest VC hub, the UK, saw female founders present in 24.1% of deals, while Germany only registered 20.3%.

Check out the map below to see which European countries have the largest percentage of VC rounds involving startups with at least one female founder since 2017.
 

 

Featured image by Mary Long/Shutterstock