Women in startups

Annabel Mekelenkamp
11 February 2019

Of all the startups launched in the UK between 2000-2018 19.4% were founded by women.

It’s safe to say that the startup scene has always largely been dominated by men. As this stat shows, it still is. Delve deeper into that figure, however, and women entrepreneurs in the UK have founded over 500 still-active startups in the last 18 years.

Women founders are taking their much-deserved place in the business world through newfound confidence in the system, winning ideas and grit – but there’s still a long way to go.

Despite evidence that women-led companies perform better than male-founded startups, generate 10% more in cumulative revenue over five years and are less prone to corruption, women-founded startups achieve considerably less funding from the investment community.

Through a series of interviews with women founders and analysis of Crunchbase’s data on startups with at least one woman founder, we’ve unpacked key stats that tell the story of women-led startups across the UK.