PitchBook, the premier data provider for the private and public equity markets, today unveiled the European VC Female Founders Dashboard to highlight venture capital investment in female-founded startups across European regions and sectors over time. Users can customize the data within the dashboard to see quarterly or annual investment activity by country, city, industry and stage. The dashboard also allows users to filter results by female-only founded startups or those with female and male co-founders. This dashboard accompanies PitchBook’s US VC Female Founders Dashboard, which launched in 2019.
While the dashboard shows investment in female-founded companies is steadily growing, funding gaps still persist. Teams of female-only founders received just 1% of all European capital raised in 2019, totaling €349 million across 274 deals. However, even as deals are down from 2018’s peak, 2020 is proving to be a strong capital year for female founders in the region. All-female teams have secured 2.3% of European funding, surpassing the annual US percentage for the first time in a decade, with €585 million invested year-to-date. The third quarter alone exceeded 2019’s total, driven in large part by Karma Kitchen‘s €279.38 million Series A round.
Key Takeaways Uncovered by PitchBook’s European VC Female Founders Dashboard:
- European startups with at least one female founder secured €4.8 billion across 1,342 deals in 2019. Just a decade earlier in 2009, female-founded or co-founded startups secured just €240 million across 136 deals.
- The first three quarters of 2020 marked the first time since 2008 that female-only founded companies secured more than 2% of total European venture capital. Annual percentages have hovered between 0.8% and 1.7% over the past decade.
- Financing to female and male teams has grown share more steadily, increasing from 3.5% of total European capital in 2010 to as high as 13.5% in 2016.
- Software is the leading sector for both female-only and female and male founded companies by capital raised, with €1.4 billion invested across 377 deals in 2019. B2B services and B2C goods followed.
- Several female-founded or co-founded startups with notable recent venture capital investment include Darktrace (€1.38 billion post-valuation), Starling Bank (€136 million post-valuation), Infarm (€362.43 million post-valuation), Vayyar (€566.84 million post-valuation) and Vinted (€1 billion post-valuation).
