PitchBook All-In Report: Female Founders See Uneven Gains, Fintech Lags

PitchBook All-In Report: Female Founders See Uneven Gains, Fintech Lags

#the-real-deal#venture-capital
Valor’s take on the 2024 PitchBook report: Female founders saw record-high funding but a declining share of VC dollars. With fewer early-stage opportunities, exits prove women-led startups outperform. Discover insights, challenges, and how to support the next generation of female entrepreneurs.

At Valor, as a seed lead investor, we're constantly tracking the data that reveals the true state of the startup ecosystem. The just-released 2024 US All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem report from PitchBook provides a data-driven look at the progress (and persistent challenges) for female founders in the US. As a female entrepreneur myself, and Valor's founder, it's hyper resonant, and I'm going to share a quick take to cut through some of the noise.

Funding share for female founders decreases even as exit count builds

The top-level takeaway? 2024 was a year of uneven gains for female founders. While the total capital raised by female-founded companies increased to $38.8 billion (up 27% from 2023), their share of total US VC funding actually decreased in terms of both deal count and value.

This highlights a critical trend: investment is concentrating in fewer, later-stage companies. The bottom IS falling out for female CEOs at the early stage, and there was never much of a floor to begin with. 

Key numbers to know now:

  • Unicorns on the Rise:  13 new female-founded companies reached unicorn status ($1B+ valuation) in 2024, bringing the total to over 120, and aggregate post money valuation exceeded $300B. Notably, many of these unicorns are in the business/productivity software space (think AI-driven solutions), and many have repeat female founders. Experience matters! Which brings back for me, as a seed stage lead investor, the criticality of investing in the best--including the many female founders we get the opportunity to speak with at Valor.

  • Exits Show Promise: Female founders secured a record 24.3% of total US VC exit count, a positive sign for investors and a leading indicator of future activity. Let's say that again: yes, a quarter of exits were from female-led startups--startups that, depending on their year of first raise, accounted for never more than 2.3% of the capital deployed that year. The silver lining is those women who do secure funding, even though it is less, can and do outperform--the exits are clear proof. 2% of founders funded (the women) scored almost a quarter of the exits last year.

    With these proof points, you'd expect a rational acting investment community to find more female founders. But money is not rational, and the reality is:

  • Share of Funding Declines: Female founders captured 19.9% of total VC deal value and 25.1% of deal count – both down from the previous year. 

  • Concentration of Capital: Fewer deals overall, but larger checks, drove the increase in total funding. This mirrors the broader VC trend of focusing on later-stage, "safer" bets. While positive for some, it also means entry points for early-stage female founders are narrowing, not expanding.

  • Valuation Gaps Persist: While valuations rose across all stages, a significant gap remains between female-founded and all-US companies, particularly at the late- and venture-growth stages. This is where the big money is, and this disparity needs urgent attention. I notice it all the time--people write smaller checks into women-led firms, and by people, I mean men and women. Our culture is still struggling with how we value, or shall I say, de-value, female leadership.

  • Fintech Lags Behind: A special section of the report, contributed by Flourish Ventures, highlights that fintech is behind the broader VC industry in funding female founders, especially all-female teams. Only 1% of fintech deal value and 2.9% of deal count went to all-female-founded fintechs in 2024. Just wow. Valor has backed several female fintech founders--including the brilliant team at Vital4, Amy Barbieri and Kristen Stafford, the force of nature that is Goodfynd, led by Sofiat Abdulrazaaq, and the AI-driven solution for student loans, Funding U, led by Jeannie Tarkenton.

  • Angel Investment Drops: The number of active female angel investors in the US fell to its lowest level in over a decade. While female angel involvement in female-founded deals remained relatively steady, this overall decline is going to make it even harder for new female startup  CEOs. 

  • GP Representation Stagnant: Women make up only 17.3% of decision-makers at VC firms with over $50M AUM. This number is essentially flat from the previous year, and it underscores the slow pace of change at the top. Valor is one such firm, and I can tell you, Pitchbook was extremely generous in its casting of the word "decision maker." If it had focused on "investment committee member" it would likely have had a single digit to report. 

The South and Southeast Perspective

  • In 2024, the Southeast region saw $1.7 billion in deal value across 263 deals for female-founded companies. The year-over-year deal count growth for the Southeast was -3.7%,  a smaller decline than the Mid-Atlantic (-23.5%), Great Lakes(-19.7%), and Midwest(-21.9%). My personal take is it is firms like Valor, and other local early-stage female led firms including Collab, Steelsky, and Artemis that are finding those female outperformers in our region and making a dent in the world one deal at a time.

Valor's perspective on backing the best--including female founders

The rise of female-founded unicorns and the outperforming contribution to  exit activity show that female founders are building incredible companies. 

  • Across Valor's current active portfolio, 42% of companies have at least 1 female co-founder.
  • For our non-profit Startup Runway, out of the 250 Finalists we've had across 30 editions,  150 (58%) were women. They raised about the same amount as the male founder companies in aggregate and won 62% (the majority) of the grants.
Valor invests deeply in finding the best founders building world-changing solutions to the urgent needs of our time. If backing the best matters to you, let's continue to solve together for supporting all founders, and female founders in particular given the landscape these CEOs are facing. Some of the solutions that are working for Valor, and could use your support, including:
  1. Join up with Startup Runway, and make a 501C3 nonprofit donation to grants that educate and connect female founders to first investors. This investor-founder connection platform really works--underrepresented founders who've gone through it are SIX TIMES more likely to raise than those who did not.
  2. If you're an angel or an investor ready to write  checks into one demographic that breaks the charts on exits, women, let's have a conversation about upcoming co-investment rounds and other ways to access these opportunities.
  3. Keep in mind this is a global problem--but the solution is local. Valor is one of the few female-led VC firms that backs "the best"--founders of all backgrounds. Just by reading this article, you're connected to solutions that pay it forward and change the game for the game-changers, our founders and innovators.Let's join forces. See you out front, where the action is.
--Lisa Calhoun PS: A note on the photo above--it is a group of Valor investors and team members.  Valor's investor base, a group we call our Community of Courage, is as diverse as the founders we back. We have a number of sophisticated institutions, but by the numbers, almost 50% of Valor's investors are women. They are some of the champions that are making a dent in the world one investment at a time--and Valor would not be here backing the best without them.