Crunchbase counted $34.7 billion invested in US companies with at least one female founder in 2023, one-quarter of venture dollars in its analysis. That share was 15% in 2022. Yet companies founded only by women received 3% of 2023 dollars, unchanged year over year.
A mixed-team measure
The quarter-share headline describes companies with at least one listed female founder. It includes mixed-gender founding teams and does not describe a quarter of dollars going to companies founded exclusively by women. Crunchbase attributed much of the jump to very large AI rounds, including financing for OpenAI and Anthropic. In its AI subset, companies with a female founder attracted more than half of dollars but fewer than one-fifth of rounds. That gap is a concentration signal, not evidence that most AI founders saw equivalent access to finance.
Dollars and round counts answer different questions
A dollar share can change sharply when a handful of mature companies raise unusually large rounds. A deal-count share speaks more to how frequently a group appeared among funded companies, though it still misses who sought funding and was turned away. Crunchbase reported female-only teams at 8% of 2023 deal counts and 3% of dollars. These figures describe different populations and stages; they cannot be collapsed into a single measure of progress.
Coverage and interpretation
Crunchbase says its database has gaps in founder and gender information, despite founder names being attached to more than 95% of dollars and 90% of deals in the US series since 2015. The 2023 result is therefore best read as a reported-data observation with a clear definition. It is a useful prompt to ask where financing accumulated: among established companies and large AI rounds, or across a wider pipeline. A higher aggregate share is real within the report, but its composition matters to the interpretation.
Crunchbase founder and gender fields are incomplete, and its at-least-one-female-founder category includes mixed teams.
Financial education, not investment or legal advice. Historical notes are retrospective analysis prepared in September 2026, not contemporaneous Venture Trace reporting.
Sources & scope
Crunchbase News
The Portion Of US VC Funding That Went To Female Founders Hit A New Peak In 2023, Thanks To Massive AI Deals
- Source date
- 6 Jun 2024
- Retrieved
- 19 Sept 2026
- Period / geography
- 2023 · United States
Crunchbase US venture rounds to companies with at least one listed female founder
Historical report snapshot. Founder records and gender tags are incomplete; a company with any female cofounder is distinct from a female-only founding team.
