Women in Venture Capital 2026 Statistics (Updated September)

How many VC partners are women

1. 1

   Women held 19% of investment partner roles at US venture firms in 2022, up from 11% in 2016, according to the NVCA-Deloitte VC Human Capital Survey.

   Source: NVCA, Deloitte and Venture Forward, VC Human Capital Survey, 2023 ^[1]

2. 2

   Women hold 18.6% of partner-level and more senior roles in venture capital, according to All Raise's 2024 annual report.

   Source: All Raise, 2024 Annual Report, 2025 ^[2]

3. 3

   Women made up 17% of decision-makers at US venture firms managing $50 million or more in 2024, the same share as a year earlier, according to PitchBook data.

   Source: PitchBook data, reported by Business Insider, 2025 ^[3]

4. 4

   57% of US venture firms had no female investment partner in 2022, down from 68% in 2018, according to the NVCA-Deloitte survey.

   Source: NVCA, Deloitte and Venture Forward, VC Human Capital Survey, 2023 ^[1]

5. 5

   Women were 26% of investment professionals at US venture firms in 2022, up from 15% in 2016, per the NVCA-Deloitte survey.

   Source: NVCA, Deloitte and Venture Forward, VC Human Capital Survey, 2023 ^[1]

6. 6

   Women held 35% of junior investment roles at US venture firms in 2022, up from 25% in 2016.

   Source: NVCA, Deloitte and Venture Forward, VC Human Capital Survey, 2023 ^[1]

7. 7

   Black women made up 1% of investment partners at US venture firms in 2022, per the NVCA-Deloitte survey.

   Source: NVCA, Deloitte and Venture Forward, VC Human Capital Survey, 2023 ^[1]

8. 8

   Asian and Pacific Islander women made up 5% of investment partners at US venture firms in 2022.

   Source: NVCA, Deloitte and Venture Forward, VC Human Capital Survey, 2023 ^[1]

9. 9

   Only about 10% of women investment partners in US venture capital have held the role for 10 years or more, per Third Way's reading of NVCA survey data.

   Source: Third Way, Women Wanted: The Equity Gap in Venture Capital, 2022 ^[4]

10. 10

    In 2019 women made up about 13% of partners at US venture firms and 15% at Canadian firms, according to Crunchbase News.

    Source: Crunchbase News, 2020 ^[5]

How many VC funds women lead

1. 11

   127 women-led venture funds closed on a combined $2.45 billion in 2025, according to Venture Capital Journal.

   Source: Venture Capital Journal, 2026 ^[6]

2. 12

   42% of new venture firms in 2024 had at least one woman managing partner, above the Female Venture 50 target of 35%, according to VC Lab.

   Source: VC Lab, Women in Venture Capital, 2025 ^[7]

3. 13

   42% of the team-led venture funds launched through VC Lab include at least one woman in a leadership role.

   Source: VC Lab, Women in Venture Capital, 2025 ^[7]

4. 14

   Women lead 19% of the solo-managed funds in VC Lab's programs, and all-women teams run 10% of team-led funds.

   Source: VC Lab, Women in Venture Capital, 2025 ^[7]

5. 15

   138 investor organisations in FundingWatcher describe themselves as women-led or focused on women founders in their name or description; 79 of them are venture capital or micro VC firms, 0.31% of the 25,527 in the file.

   Source: FundingWatcher · investor file, data as of September 15, 2026 · 42,472 investor organisations; 25,527 VC and micro VC firms · method

6. 16

   78 of the 138 women-focused investors in FundingWatcher (56.5%) are based in the United States.

   Source: FundingWatcher · investor file, data as of September 15, 2026 · 138 women-focused investor organisations · method

7. 17

   80.3% of the women-focused venture firms in FundingWatcher with a known founding year were founded in 2015 or later, against 55.6% of all venture firms.

   Source: FundingWatcher · investor file, data as of September 15, 2026 · 66 women-focused VC firms with a founding year; all VC and micro VC firms with a founding year · method

Women in UK and European venture capital

1. 18

   27% of UK-based private equity and venture capital investment professionals were women in 2025, up from 24% in 2023, according to Level 20 and the BVCA.

   Source: Level 20 and BVCA, Diversity in UK Private Equity and Venture Capital, 2025 ^[8]

2. 19

   Women held 15% of senior investment roles at UK private equity and venture capital firms in 2025, up from 12% in 2023.

   Source: Level 20 and BVCA, Diversity in UK Private Equity and Venture Capital, 2025 ^[8]

3. 20

   Women hold 23% of senior roles at UK venture capital firms, compared with 13% at private equity firms, per Level 20 and the BVCA.

   Source: Level 20 and BVCA, Diversity in UK Private Equity and Venture Capital, 2025 ^[8]

4. 21

   Women hold 36% of mid-level roles at UK venture capital firms and 26% at private equity firms.

   Source: Level 20 and BVCA, Diversity in UK Private Equity and Venture Capital, 2025 ^[8]

5. 22

   Women make up 38% of the UK venture capital workforce, according to Ada Ventures.

   Source: Ada Ventures, Women in UK Venture Capital, 2024 ^[9]

6. 23

   Women hold 22% of UK venture capital jobs with a leadership title such as partner, founder or general partner, per Ada Ventures.

   Source: Ada Ventures, Women in UK Venture Capital, 2024 ^[9]

7. 24

   Only 23 women held significant ownership in UK VC management companies that raised a fund from 2017 to 2023 (17.7%), per Ada Ventures.

   Source: Ada Ventures, Women in UK Venture Capital, 2024 ^[9]

8. 25

   Female representation among UK venture capital staff has been flat at 30% since 2019, according to Diversity VC.

   Source: Diversity VC, Diversity in UK Venture Capital, 2023 ^[10]

9. 26

   Only 16% of general partners at European venture firms were women in 2023, up from 15% in 2022, according to European Women in VC.

   Source: European Women in VC and IDC, European Women in VC report, 2023 ^[11]

10. 27

    Female general partners raised 9% of assets under management at European venture firms, and male general partners 91%.

    Source: European Women in VC and IDC, European Women in VC report, 2023 ^[11]

11. 28

    47% of European venture firms surveyed in 2023 expected the number of women general partners at their firm to grow over the next five years, a prediction reported by European Women in VC.

    Source: European Women in VC and IDC, European Women in VC report, 2023 ^[11]

How gender diversity relates to fund returns

1. 29

   Venture firms that hire 10% more female investing partners have 1.5% higher fund returns and 9.7% more profitable exits, according to research by Calder-Wang and Gompers in the Journal of Financial Economics.

   Source: Journal of Financial Economics (summary by Harvard Kennedy School), 2021 ^[12]

2. 30

   European venture teams made up mostly of women outperformed men-only teams by 9.3 percentage points, according to European Women in VC.

   Source: European Women in VC and IDC, European Women in VC report, 2023 ^[11]

3. 31

   Each 10% increase in the share of women on a European VC fund's team was associated with a 1.3 percentage point higher IRR.

   Source: European Women in VC and IDC, European Women in VC report, 2023 ^[11]

How investor gender shows up in funding decisions

1. 32

   When investors heard the same pitch read by a male or a female voice, 68.33% chose to fund the male-voiced pitch (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

   Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014 ^[13]

2. 33

   On Shark Tank, female investors were 30% more likely to engage with female entrepreneurs than with male ones, while male investors showed no systematic preference.

   Source: Empirical Economics (IZA discussion paper 14069), 2021 ^[14]

3. 34

   Inexperienced female investors were 138% more interested in startups with female founders than in those with male founders, in a randomized experiment on an equity crowdfunding platform (Management Science).

   Source: Management Science, 2020 ^[15]

4. 35

   Among all businesses registered in California and Massachusetts from 1995 to 2011, female-led ventures were 63 percentage points less likely than male-led ones to raise venture capital (Research Policy).

   Source: Research Policy, 2019 ^[16]

5. 36

   In the same California and Massachusetts data, 65% of that gap comes from differences in how the ventures were set up at founding; the remaining 35% likely reflects investor preferences.

   Source: Research Policy, 2019 ^[16]

6. 37

   Women leading Chinese VC-backed companies were 3.1% more likely than men to be replaced after raising capital, per a study in the Journal of Business Ethics.

   Source: Journal of Business Ethics, 2025 ^[17]

How much VC money goes to female founders

1. 38

   US female-founded companies raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, 27.7% of US venture deal value, according to PitchBook.

   Source: PitchBook, US All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem, 2026 ^[18]

2. 39

   Companies with a female founder accounted for nearly 25% of US venture-backed exits in 2025, per PitchBook.

   Source: PitchBook, US All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem, 2026 ^[18]

3. 40

   83% of the deals UK venture capital firms made had no woman on the founding team, according to the British Business Bank.

   Source: British Business Bank, UK VC and Female Founders, 2019 ^[19]

Frequently asked questions

What percentage of VC partners are women?

Women held 19% of investment partner roles at US venture firms in 2022, according to the NVCA-Deloitte VC Human Capital Survey, up from 11% in 2016. All Raise puts the share of partner-level roles at 18.6%, and PitchBook counted 17% of decision-makers at US firms managing $50 million or more in 2024.

How many VC firms have no women partners?

57% of US venture firms had no female investment partner in 2022, down from 68% in 2018, according to the NVCA-Deloitte survey.

How many women work in venture capital?

Women were 26% of investment professionals at US venture firms in 2022. In the UK, 27% of private equity and venture capital investment professionals were women in 2025, according to Level 20 and the BVCA, and 16% of general partners at European venture firms were women in 2023.

How many venture funds are led by women?

127 women-led venture funds closed on a combined $2.45 billion in 2025, according to Venture Capital Journal. FundingWatcher counts 79 VC and micro VC firms whose profile describes them as women-led or focused on women founders, 0.31% of the venture firms in its file.

Do venture firms with more women partners perform better?

Research by Calder-Wang and Gompers in the Journal of Financial Economics found that firms hiring 10% more female partners had 1.5% higher fund returns and 9.7% more profitable exits. In Europe, teams made up mostly of women outperformed men-only teams by 9.3 percentage points, according to European Women in VC.

Sources

1. [1]NVCA, Deloitte and Venture Forward, VC Human Capital Survey. 2023.↑1 ↑4 ↑5 ↑6 ↑7 ↑8
2. [2]All Raise, 2024 Annual Report. 2025.↑2
3. [3]PitchBook data, reported by Business Insider. 2025.↑3
4. [4]Third Way, Women Wanted: The Equity Gap in Venture Capital. 2022.↑9
5. [5]Crunchbase News. 2020.↑10
6. [6]Venture Capital Journal. 2026.↑11
7. [7]VC Lab, Women in Venture Capital. 2025.↑12 ↑13 ↑14
8. [8]Level 20 and BVCA, Diversity in UK Private Equity and Venture Capital. 2025.↑18 ↑19 ↑20 ↑21
9. [9]Ada Ventures, Women in UK Venture Capital. 2024.↑22 ↑23 ↑24
10. [10]Diversity VC, Diversity in UK Venture Capital. 2023.↑25
11. [11]European Women in VC and IDC, European Women in VC report. 2023.↑26 ↑27 ↑28 ↑30 ↑31
12. [12]Journal of Financial Economics (summary by Harvard Kennedy School). 2021.↑29
13. [13]Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2014.↑32
14. [14]Empirical Economics (IZA discussion paper 14069). 2021.↑33
15. [15]Management Science. 2020.↑34
16. [16]Research Policy. 2019.↑35 ↑36
17. [17]Journal of Business Ethics. 2025.↑37
18. [18]PitchBook, US All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem. 2026.↑38 ↑39
19. [19]British Business Bank, UK VC and Female Founders. 2019.↑40

Method

We searched Google for women in venture capital statistics, female VC statistics and women VC partners statistics, read the pages that ranked, and traced each number to the survey, dataset or paper that produced it. US staffing numbers come from the NVCA-Deloitte VC Human Capital Survey, UK numbers from Level 20 with the BVCA, Ada Ventures and Diversity VC, and European numbers from European Women in VC. 7 numbers come from academic papers found through OpenAlex; where the publisher's page blocks automated reads we checked the abstract through the Semantic Scholar or OSF record. The surveys define partner differently, which is why the US share of women partners ranges from 17% to 19% across sources. Numbers about female founders are kept to a few; they describe where investors put money. FundingWatcher has no gender field, so its three numbers count investor organisations whose own profile describes them as women-led or focused on women founders, from its investor file of 79,515 investors, data as of September 15, 2026.

FundingWatcher numbers new on this page:

• 138 investor organisations in FundingWatcher describe themselves as women-led or focused on women founders in their name or description; 79 of them are venture capital or micro VC firms, 0.31% of the 25,527 in the file. The investor file has no gender field and we did not guess anyone's gender from a name. We matched organisation names containing women, female, girls, ladies or she (as in She Capital), and descriptions with phrases such as women-led, female founders or invests in women. We read the matches and found no false positives among the first 45. Funds that back women but do not say so in their profile are missed, so the count is a floor.
• 78 of the 138 women-focused investors in FundingWatcher (56.5%) are based in the United States. Headquarters country of the organisations counted in the previous number. The next largest groups are the United Kingdom (11) and Canada (10).
• 80.3% of the women-focused venture firms in FundingWatcher with a known founding year were founded in 2015 or later, against 55.6% of all venture firms. Founding year from the firm profile, for the 66 of 79 women-focused VC and micro VC firms that list one, compared with every VC and micro VC firm that lists one.

All 40 statistics as a CSV: women-in-venture-capital-statistics.csv.

Cite this page

FundingWatcher, “Women in Venture Capital 2026 Statistics (Updated September)”, updated September 2026, https://fundingwatcher.com/research/women-in-venture-capital-statistics/

To cite one number, link its anchor: each statistic has one, for example https://fundingwatcher.com/research/women-in-venture-capital-statistics/#stat-1.