President Donald Trump and his administration have made their opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs clear through rhetoric and policy.
Yet corporate America shows little appetite for abandoning these efforts. A recent survey by law firm Littler, found 49% of business leaders aren’t scaling back DEI initiatives, while just 8% are considering significant changes.
The why (at least for women) is pretty clear: Over three years, female-led startups raised $30.6 billion in 2023, climbing to $38 billion in 2024. But even with these returns, venture capital funds have historically snubbed women-led startups with financial support.
Despite systemic barriers, women have firmly established themselves in tech. As they face new challenges holding their space, there’s still an unanswered question: Will venture capital finally provide equitable funding to match their proven success?
HERstory
Today, women have proven time and time again that they know how to make a profit.
A 2018 Boston Consulting Group and MassChallenge study that revealed that women-led startups generated 78 cents per dollar invested versus men’s 31 cents. in total, they were able to raise 10% higher revenue–even with funding gaps.
But it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that women saw the many barriers to financial independence fall.
While the Equal Pay Act of 1963 mandated equal pay, true financial autonomy came only with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. This was built upon in 1988 with the Women’s Business Ownership Act, landmark legislation that expanded access to loans and training programs.
Women entrepreneurs finally had a platform to work off of.
These reforms fueled massive growth with women-owned businesses: increasing from 402,000 in 1972 to 12.3 million in 2018 while generating $1.8 trillion in annual revenue.
Catching Up and Slowing down
In the 21st century, women have continued to shatter glass ceilings and are creeping into tech’s highest ranks.
In 2024, female-led startups across all stages showed steady growth. For late-stage VC, post-valuations for female-founded companies grew to $60.7 million from $55.1 million. Even more impressive, that same year, 13 female-founded startups achieved unicorn status (valuation exceeding $1 billion).
But women remain underrepresented. While more female-led companies were involved in last year’s high-value funds, they comprised just 17% of all unicorn founders, according to Defiance Capital’s decade-long study. Carta data showed even starker numbers as you move down the food chain, with only 13.2% of all 2023 founders being women.
Significant funding gaps have persisted as well–and the current political climate may hinder that further.
So far in 2025, Q1 data from PitchBook’s Female Founders Dashboard shows a steep drop in VC deals for women. But what makes this more concerning is the consistent downward trend in capital, with women-led startups collecting only 2.3% of overall U.S. funding in 2022, according to a PitchBook report. By 2024, women have seen a smaller share of total VC investment in both deal count and value.
The report indicates a continued rough fundraising environment for women, concluding: “In an era of bifurcation in VC markets, where select companies are attracting massive checks while most others face continued fundraising difficulties, the decline in female-founder representation means there is catching up to do on both sides of the deal table.”
Working Twice as Hard
Overall, women-led ventures had a tough time pulling in new funding. But when Christian Dorffer, founder of Defiance Capital, spoke to Techcrunch about the fund’s unicorn report, he said he believes women have more potential than larger VCs can see–missing the opportunity to for stronger returns.
Being a female founder requires exhaustive stamina, Dorffer highlighted, “you have to work twice as hard and take twice as many meetings to raise the money.”
Currently, there are few top funds committing massive investments in possible and/or established unicorns. Pointing to Sequoia as an example, as they are only the top fund in 2.8% of all unicorns, which means they miss a lot. This is why family offices have become a platform for promising early-stage funds.
“There’s only 30 funds that have more than 1% share of all these unicorns, which means that it’s totally fragmented,” Dorffer added. “If you combine this fragmentation with the fact that immigrants and women found it harder to fundraise, there’s a huge opportunity for new funds to come in and specifically set out to look for these founders.”
“So if you’re looking to maximize returns as a family office, you need to be in a few new funds, emerging managers in order to get that outlier company that turns into a unicorn.”
About the Author: Tess Danielson is a journalist and writer focusing on the intersection of technology and society.
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