IDC European Woman in Venture Capital

EUROPEAN WOMEN IN VC IDC #EUR148997722 © IDC 2022 8 01. The funding gap for females in the venture and startups space remains largely the same as in previous years, though capital deployed to mixed founding teams increased slightly. In 2021, all-women-founded startups raised just 1.8% of investment in Europe. 9.3% went to mixed-gender founding teams , while all-men founding teams raised 89%. Meanwhile, total investment in European startups grew 136% to €100 billion.  02. 2021 was no exception to the rule. Since 2018, all-women founding teams have received on average 2.7% of startup investment each year. Progress is either flat or reversing . 03. From a funding perspective, the gender gap is ubiquitous. Our combined desk and survey research of 303 European venture funds and 122 VC respondents respectively of funds over €25M AUM indicates that 85% of VC General Partners are male, 15% female .  04. Creating a balanced gender structure at a funding level not only means the number of female GPs should increase; it also means that these female GPs need access to the larger funds if they want to exert force . Analysing actual investment power (firepower) shows that female GPs have less investment power, at 9% of the total AUM versus 91% of the male GPs of the total AUM .  05. The extent towhich a specific European country is pushing the boundaries to create a more gender equal society varies. Access to education and an efficient support system add to create a favourable environment to pursue more ambitious career opportunities, yet the disproportionate and unequal access to capital is prevalent throughout the continent. 06. The strong emergence of bio-tech and life science funds of significant size in certain parts of Europe is the early sign of progress in bringing more capital to the hands of female investors and the creation of diverse investment teams. If this segment of investment was removed from the analysis, the picture of European VC management would likely show a lower result for female GPs. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS * Percentages are rounded to 0.1% TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET