Women-founded startups in Europe

Funding into Women-founded startups has grown nearly tenfold over the past five years, reaching $8.3B in 2025. With $3.8B raised in the first 5 months of 2026, the full year is on track to land at $9.2B, a +10% change versus 2025. The chart below shows annual funding totals; the latest year is annualised from observed-to-date data and represents the renderer's projection, not a closed quarter.

Yearly totals mask the quarter-by-quarter rhythm. The chart below shows Women-founded startups funding raised in each of the last 21 complete quarters through Q1 2026. All bars are actual closed-quarter sums, no projections, no in-progress quarters.

Women-founded's share of European venture capital tracks how much of Europe's startup capital lands in this market. In 2016, Women-founded startups accounted for 7.9% of European VC funding; by 2026 the share had reached 11.0%. The chart below splits each year's total European VC funding into Women-founded on the bottom and the rest of the market on top.

How capital deployed into Women-founded startups is split across round sizes. In the trailing four quarters, 37% of capital landed in scaleup ($100M+) rounds, 38% in breakout ($15–100M), and 25% across startups (under $15M). Each panel below stacks the canonical sub-bands across Q1 2022 → Q1 2026.

The most active investors in Women-founded startups ranked by the number of disclosed rounds they've participated in. Bpifrance leads with 209 rounds, followed by Antler at 169. The table shows the top ten with their firm type, in-scope round count, total portfolio size, and headquarters.

Two views of leadership in Women-founded startups: the most-funded companies all-time on the left, and the hottest companies right now by Dealroom Signal on the right. Total-funding figures include all capital sources tracked by Dealroom (VC plus grants, project finance, and other instruments). Signal is Dealroom's live growth ranking, these are the firms with the strongest recent momentum across team, timing, growth, and completeness.

How Women-founded startups in Europe stacks up against its global VC peers, with Women-founded startups in Europe highlighted. The chart ranks the top countries; alongside it, the leading Paris metro region leads the city ranking with $1.9B. Use the metric pills, and the dropdown, to switch view.

Where Women-founded startups VC-backed startups are based. Each marker is sized by the number of VC-backed startups HQ'd in that metro. London leads at 1,598, followed by Paris at 618. Scroll or drag to explore, pinch with two fingers on mobile.

Over the last 12 months (through Jun 2026), the largest VC rounds in Women-founded startups reveal where capital is consolidating. The table below lists the 15 biggest disclosed rounds by amount, with date, company, round type, and lead investors. Funding events without a public amount are excluded; acquisitions sit in the Unicorns & Exits section.

Which industries pull in the most venture capital across Women-founded startups, and where does the Women-founded punch above its weight versus the rest of the world? Use the toggle to switch between absolute VC funding and each industry's over/under-index, and to change the time window. Over the last 12 months (to end of Q1 2026), AI leads at $3.6B, and the Women-founded over-indexes in Gaming, Food, Health, and under-indexes most in Transportation, AI, Space relative to the rest of the world. Industries are tracked through Dealroom's industry tags, which overlap, a company spanning, say, AI and fintech is counted in both, so these show where capital concentrates, not a mutually exclusive split of the total.

Women-founded startups have minted 55 unicorns to date. Dealroom defines a unicorn as a company that has reached a $1B+ valuation or exit (verified and manually reviewed; other lists use different criteria, this is ours). Of those, 3 are decacorns at a $10B+ valuation: ARM, ŌURA and Talkdesk. The ecosystem also counts 74 thoroughbreds: companies generating $100M+ in revenue (a separate lens from unicorns, with some overlap). The chart below shows the cumulative count climbing each year, with the line tracking new unicorns minted in that year, peaking at 10 in 2021. On exits, the sector has produced 837 tracked acquisitions since 2010 representing $69.2B in disclosed value. Notable acquisitions in the data include ARM ($31.7B, 2016), followed by Darktrace ($5.3B, 2024), ARM ($4.9B, 2023).

Entrepreneurship is a power law. Of every Women-founded startup founded, only a fraction attract venture capital, and far fewer climb each successive funding level. This funnel traces VC-backed Women-founded startups from first cheque through to the rarest valuation outcomes. Mouth figures are annual means (2010–2024); pool stages count VC-backed companies founded since 1990 by total funding.

Universities are a talent pipeline behind women-founded startups: the schools whose alumnae found the most unicorns and venture-backed companies, and the research that spins out into them.

The patent portfolio behind Europe's women-founded startups: granted patent families, intensity per capita, and where the IP concentrates.