Hey 👋🏾
First genuine good news to start, because it's real and I'm not going to be that person who ruins it in sentence two.
On 1 September, Berlin-based Auxxo closed its second Female Catalyst Fund at €33.3 million, one of the biggest funds in Europe built specifically to back women. It's joining a whole run of similar closes this year: Arāya Sie Fund, Capital F, others…
European deal value into female-founded startups has hit €9.7 billion this year, nearly matching all of 2025
Now.
Sit down for the number that's right next to that celebration post, which absolutely nobody is putting in the celebration post.
The teaspoon problem
All-female founding teams captured just 1% of European deal value this year — down from 1.3% in 2025.
That means the dedicated funds are growing but the overall slice for all-female teams is shrinking.
It's not just Europe though
Globally, all-female teams received about 2.3% of the $289 billion invested in 2024 $6.7 billion, against $241.9 billion that went to all-male teams. In the UK specifically, that number was around 1.8%.
And it's not just about getting a deal at all. Even when women do close a round, the cheque is dramatically smaller: the average deal size for female-only teams was $5.2 million globally, versus $11.7 million for male-only teams.
In the UK, one analysis said: £500,000 average for female-led businesses against £3.7 million for male-led ones.
The £50 million everyone is afriad to talk about.
A UK analysis of every Companies House share-allotment filing from 2023 through Q1 2026, not press-release rounds, every recorded deal found all-female teams have been backed at a stable rate of roughly one deal in fifteen the whole time.
But they've consistently received two to three times less capital than that deal-share would suggest. And across the entire three-year dataset:
Not a single all-female-founded raise in the UK has broken £50 million
Average all-female round size: £1.2 million, against £2.4 million for all-male rounds the gap has widened since 2023, not narrowed.
Why the dedicated funds can't fix this alone
The Investing in Women Code, a voluntary UK commitment, shows what happens when firms actually try.
Signatories now direct 32% of their VC funding to female-led businesses, against 15% market-wide, and give all-female teams 6% of their investment, three times the 2% market average.
That's measurable outperformance from firms that signed up to be checked.
But 6% from committed signatories, against roughly 1-2% from everyone else, tells us the real problem isn't a lack of good intentions in dedicated pockets.
It's that the overwhelming majority of capital, the mainstream funds with the biggest cheque books haven't moved at all.
New female-focused funds are a genuinely good. Take the meetings, reach out to them.
But do the maths on any fund before you get excited:
What's their total AUM?
What's their typical cheque size?
Do they reserve follow-on capital for your next round, or are you back out fundraising alone at Series A?
Are they a signatory to anything that holds them publicly accountable, or just posting well-intentioned content?
Dedicated funds are teaspoons. Useful, but you cannot fill your growth round from a teaspoon alone.
Which is exactly why so many female founders are looking at equity crowdfunding not as a fallback, but as the instrument that lets hundreds of ordinary backers do collectively what one tiny fund cheque never could.
📌 This week in your world
Three things worth your time…..
5. BOOKR used three kinds of funding in one round
Female-founded edtech company BOOKR combined new investment, secondary share sales and the conversion of existing debt or convertible instruments into equity. That structure is useful for founders because it shows a funding round does not always have to be one simple cheque with one simple purpose.
The founder takeaway: New growth money, existing investor liquidity and old financing can sometimes be dealt with together—but only if you understand exactly who is getting paid and who is being diluted.
→ Read more: BOOKR raises €6.1m through a hybrid funding round
6. Holifya raised €2m for AI-powered obesity care
The female-led Italian startup raised €2m to expand its AI-powered obesity clinic and personalised treatment support. It is another example of investors backing businesses where technology is attached to a very specific, expensive and urgent customer problem not just “AI for everything.”
The useful question: Can you explain the expensive problem your business solves without leading with the technology?
7. Women-led founders can now apply to an agentic-AI accelerator
Foundry3 Scale is offering an eight-week, in-person London programme for pre-seed and seed startups with at least one female founder building an agentic-AI product. It says the programme takes no fee or equity and includes investor access, mentors, corporate partners and a Demo Day; applications close on 15 September 2026.
The question worth asking: Is an accelerator useful because of the programme or because it gets you in front of the right people?
Until Next time…..
