The latest funding statistics from Cut Through Venture show just 2% of venture capital went to women-led startups in 2024. That means the gap is even bigger than we thought… and it’s growing.
Between the in-house Tractor team and our band of contributors, we’ve spent an awful lot of time thinking about the gender funding gap lately. Much of that thinking has been informed by Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures’ State of Australian Funding report — the report most frequently cited while exploring these stats; the report released annually towards the start of every year.
As we prepared our content for Part Two of this series, we had our eyes and ears out for the updated gender funding statistics we knew were coming our way.
And we had a teeny niggling question: What if it’s all turned around?
What if there’s no gender gap to speak of anymore? What if we’re deep-diving into a problem that no longer exists?
As it turns out, we had nothing to worry about (or, maybe we did?) Because, while initiatives are emerging to tackle the funding gap, we’re not seeing it lead to measurable change. At least, not yet.
The State of Australian Funding report breaks down funding by gender using two different metrics: the number of deals done and the number of dollars invested.
In 2024, startups with all-woman founding teams were involved in 9% of all deals, while mixed-gender teams accounted for 18%. This means 72% of all deals made involved only male founders.
When it comes to dollars and cents, things look bleaker still. All-women teams received just 2% of all capital invested, and mixed teams received 13% — that’s a slight dip compared to 3% and 15%, respectively, in 2023.
A huge 85% of all capital invested went to all-male founding teams, compared to 82% in 2023.
In Part One of our Beyond Barriers series, in our analysis of the current landscape, we referenced these same stats from the 2023 report. The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that the numbers reported there are slightly different to the 2023 numbers referenced in the 2024 report.
According to a Cut Through Venture spokesperson, that’s because there were some deals completed in 2023 that weren’t yet public when the report for that year came out. This is an evolving data set, and the numbers reported in 2024 are the most up-to-date, they confirmed.
That is to say, the funding gap in 2023 was actually even worse than we thought.
For 2024, the gap overall is worse still. But we did see improvements in deal participation for early-stage investment.
Startups with at least one woman on the founding team accounted for 42% of angel and pre-seed funding deals and 29% of seed funding deals, a record high in both categories.
In theory, this should bode well, suggesting we will see these funded businesses seeking Series A and B rounds in the next few years. In practice, women-led businesses have always been better represented at the early stages. We’re still waiting for the influx of follow-on rounds.
A screenshot from the 2024 State of Australian Startup Funding report. Credit: Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures
We don’t have the numbers on the value of raises broken down by stage. However, the median deal size for women overall was $1 million in 2024, compared to $1.4 million for mixed-gender teams and $3.2 million for all-male teams.
It’s worth noting here that median deal size for all women teams has more than doubled compared to 2023. While we could see this as cause for celebration, we would also note that 2023 was a particularly bad year, with deal sizes for all-women teams averaging out at just $430,000.
Further, the 2024 averages for women founders and mixed teams were skewed high by a handful of large raises. The five highest-value deals involving a woman founder accounted for 70% of the total funding secured by women.
In reality, we knew there would have been no miracle turnaround since this time last year. We knew, really, that this series would continue to be as relevant as ever.
Because closing this gap will require more than individual programs — certainly more than platitudes or good intentions. Closing this gap will require real systems change; the dismantling of barriers that have stood for generations; and a collaborative effort and investment from the government, industry and ecosystem partners. It’s time for courageous leadership.
You don’t have to look far to find women founders doing incredible things, even with a fraction of the funding they deserve. Imagine what they could do with a fair share?
Writer
Stephanie Palmer-Derrien
Writer
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