Why 87.5% of European VC Still Skips Women Founders

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-22

Europe's startup scene has a stubborn funding problem. Women are building companies, but the money is still overwhelmingly flowing elsewhere. A 2026 study revealed that in 2025, all-female founding teams received just 2.5% of equity investment in Europe. Mixed-gender teams got less than 10%. That means roughly 87.5% of all venture dollars went to male-founded companies. Those numbers expose a gap that goes way beyond representation. They raise hard questions about who gets access to capital, which ideas get the chance to scale, and how much potential Europe is leaving on the table. ### The Rise of Women-Focused Funds Against this backdrop, a growing number of venture capital funds across Europe are building investment strategies specifically around women founders and more diverse founding teams. Some have explicit eligibility requirements, like a minimum percentage of founder equity held by women. Others make women founders a central part of a broader diversity or impact mandate. Here are 10 European funding vehicles with a stated focus on women founders and diverse teams. ### Arāya Ventures and Sie Ventures (London, UK) Sie Ventures and Arāya Ventures teamed up to create the Arāya Sie Fund, backing the next generation of women-led technology startups across the UK and Europe. The fund focuses on pre-Seed and Seed-stage companies in AI, DeepTech, FinTech, healthcare, and sustainability. Unlike some funds on this list, there's no specific minimum percentage of founder equity that must be held by women. To qualify, startups must: - Be building a scalable, venture-backable, and defensible business - Be launched or in active Beta - Have a founding team with at least one woman co-founder - Offer a tech-enabled product or service via mobile or web, or hold patentable technology ### Auxxo (Berlin, Germany) The Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund has one of the clearest women-founder eligibility criteria in Europe. It invests exclusively in European startups with at least one woman founder holding a minimum of 20% of the founder shares. The mission is to advance women's ownership, participation, and fair treatment across startups and the VC ecosystem. The fund is sector-agnostic and focuses on pre-Seed and Seed-stage companies. That 20% requirement is a prerequisite for investment, making gender representation a defining part of its investable universe rather than just an add-on. Auxxo recently announced the final closing of its Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund II at €33.3 million (about $36 million), surpassing its prior fund by more than 75%. ### Borski Fund (Amsterdam, Netherlands) Borski Fund combines a focus on women entrepreneurs with a broader requirement for gender diversity. The fund's mission is to address the investment diversity gap by directing capital toward companies with gender-diverse teams, with particular emphasis on women entrepreneurs. It invests in companies where, at the time of investment, at least 30% of the founder shares are held by one or more women founders or co-founders. That said, Borski can invest in male teams if they're working on a FemTech innovation to reduce the gender health gap and have a commitment to improving gender diversity within the team. This makes Borski distinct from women-only models: its eligibility framework explicitly combines women founder participation with gender diversity across the broader team. ### CapitalT (Amsterdam, Netherlands) CapitalT is a women-led venture capital firm whose investment approach includes measures designed to reduce bias and broaden access to its investment process. The firm reports that 84% of its portfolio companies have at least one woman, BIPOC, or LGBTQ+ founder. CapitalT doesn't publicly specify a minimum ownership threshold for women founders. Instead, it states that it has no diversity mandate and incorporates women founders as part of a broader commitment to inclusivity. > "We don't have a diversity mandate, but we do have a diversity outcome," says CapitalT's managing partner. "It's about creating access for everyone, not just checking boxes." ### The Bottom Line These funds are just a start. The gap is still huge, but the momentum is real. For women founders in Europe, there's never been more dedicated capital—and for investors, there's never been a better time to tap into untapped potential.