Getting Funding as an African Startup Founder is Hard. It’s even Harder when You’re a Woman
Three women discussing Ghana’s crude oil exports to the UK, highlighting economic trade relations.
In 2023, startups with solo female founders or an all-female founding team raised only 2.3% of total funding in Africa. Meanwhile, 15% of the funding went to a founding team with at least one woman. In the previous year, both figures stood at 2.4% and 13%, respectively (data from Briter Bridges). The funding gap between genders is a global problem. Last year, in the U.S., companies with all-female founding teams scooped just 1.8% of the $170.59 billion worth of VC money raised. This is for an ecosystem that, supposedly, has more data to inform a better margin. In 2015, First Round Capital, a Silicon Valley VC fund, collected data from 300 companies over a decade. And they found that teams with at least one female co-founder outperformed all-male teams by a staggering 63%. They also generate $0.78 revenue per dollar raised compared to all-male teams $0.31. Yet, the funding gap hasn’t improved much.