Female Foundry Week 144: Female founders across Europe are embracing AI-driven opportunities and doubling down on solving the toughest problems: Insights from the Female Innovation Index 2025.
Welcome to The Week 144, 2025 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - the Future of Venture is here.
What a week it has been! On Monday, we officially launched the 2025 Edition of the Female Innovation Index. Here’s a summary of the launch and a snapshot of the Index.
In the news
London-based olive oil company Citizens of Soil, co-founded by Sarah Vachon, secures a £1.8m Seed round co-led by FIGR Ventures for premium olive oil production; Berlin-based digital mental health startup HelloBetter, co-founded by Hanne Horvath and Elena Heber, secures a €6m funding round led by Mutuelles Impact to expand its online therapy programmes; Oslo-based proptech startup Telescope, co-founded by Marit Bjerkreim, secures a €3.7m Seed round led by Scale Capital to turn climate risk compliance into a strategic advantage for real estate owners; Lithuanian startup Strato Create, co-founded by Beatrice Laurinkute Kijeviciene, secures a €167.4k bridge round led by Coinvest Capital to automate home design, estimation, and sales; Copenhagen-based materials discovery startup PhaseTree, co-founded by Jenna Kang, secures a €3m Seed round led by Heartcore Capital to accelerate the discovery of sustainable materials; British Decision Intelligence company Quantexa, co-founded by Laura Hutton, secures a €163.3m Series F round led by Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG) to use AI to unify siloed data; London-based geospatial analytics startup Ocean Ledger, co-founded by Paige Roepers, secures a €900k Pre-Seed round led by Ananda Impact Ventures to increase the accuracy of coastal risk management; Estonian fintech Cino, co-founded by Elena Churilova and Lina Saleh, secures a €3.5m Seed round led by Balderton Capital for its payments app and virtual card solution.
Spotlight
Female Innovation Index 2025
Female founders across Europe are embracing AI-driven opportunities and doubling down on solving the toughest problems
What a week it has been!
On Monday, we officially launched the 2025 Edition of the Female Innovation Index.
A total of 322 people joined us in person, including some of the most innovative founders—among them Liz Upton, founder of Raspberry Pi, who IPO’d (one of only three female founders to do so in 2024), and Anne Boden, founder of the unicorn Railsbank, along with others.
Here are a few professional snaps from the Launch:
For those of you who have missed it! Here is the recording of the Launch Event.
Media Reception
The Index has already attracted a lot of media attention with coverage from TechCrunch, Tech.eu, Startups Magazine, Maddyness, Sifted, Tech Funding News and others.
Key insights
I have organized the Index into three main parts: Idea, Innovation, and Impact. As companies progress through the innovation funnel and raise funding, their impact increases. Every company starts as an idea, and as they raise subsequent rounds of funding, their numbers decrease, but their influence grows.
Read the key insights:
Idea
Every successful company first started as an idea.
Without ideas, there is no investment. Without investment, there is no innovation.
In 2024 in Europe, female-founded startups have emerged in key sectors, including enterprise software, marketing, education, recruitment, fintech, and food.
Innovation (idea + capital)
One of the biggest discoveries this year for the Index has been the analysis of success rates for female founders in securing funding, relative to the total number of female-founded companies. The percentage of funding raised by female-founded companies (e.g., 12%) is only meaningful in context. It is more valuable to consider the total number of companies created in the first place to understand the full picture.
Our analysis has revealed that there are no significant differences in the capital raised by female-founded companies compared to general, gender-agnostic companies when considering the total number of female-founded companies.
We also discovered that female-founded companies are actually more successful than the general startup population at securing Series A funding.
Interesting, isn’t it?
If you still wonder how much funding went to female-founded companies in Europe in 2024: Female-founded businesses in Europe raised €5.76bn in 2024.
While this marks a 12% drop from the €6.56bn raised in 2023, the decline is in line with the broader 11% decrease in venture capital funding deployed across European companies of all genders.
The €5.76bn raised by female founders represents 12% of the total venture capital raised by startups of all genders in 2024.
Funding rounds for female founders are also getting bigger. On average, there has been a 7% increase in round size across the stages compared to last year. The number of $0-$1M and $1M-$4M funding rounds has decreased by 29%, while $40M-$100M rounds remain stable (-1.51%) and $100M-$250M rounds rose by 41.72%.
The largest funding rounds in 2024: UK-based WorldRemit - €242 million (October) and Germany’s The Exploration Company - €150 million round (November).
By sector
Health, fintech, and food continue to attract the biggest amount of venture capital investment going to female-founded companies, receiving €2.06B, €1.01B and €591M respectively.
Spotlight: Deeptech & AI
The deep tech sector presents a significant opportunity for more investment in female-led innovation.
33% of all venture capital raised in 2024 by female entrepreneurs in Europe went to deeptech startups, which is 2% more than gender-agnostic startups.
81% of the 50 largest financing rounds of 2024 raised by female founders went to those with scientific backgrounds.
Synthetic biology (€282.4M), generative AI (€221.8M), and drug development (€169.9M) were the top-funded areas of deeptech by female-founded companies in 2024.
Female AI innovation is picking up the pace
25% of the 50 largest financing rounds of 2024 raised by female founders went to AI-driven startups.
77% of female founders currently leverage AI for their businesses, according to the Female Innovation Index 2025 Survey. The biggest rounds: Swiss Cradle - €66m round in November, UK-based Dexory - €50m round in October, and Swedish Sana Labs - €50m round in October.
Impact (idea + capital + scale)
Female-founded M&A, unicorns, and IPOs gain momentum.
M&A activity by female-founded companies grew by 15%, with 111 deals recorded in 2024 (vs. 100 in 2023).
Three European female-founded companies—France’s Newcleo and Pigment, and Germany’s Cardior Pharmaceuticals—achieved unicorn status in 2024, joining 22 other female-founded companies in surpassing the €1bn valuation mark.
2024 was also a landmark year for female-founded IPO company exits. UK-based Raspberry Pi, Bulgaria’s Boleron, and Sweden’s Big Akwa successfully went public through IPOs, marking an increase from just one IPO last year.
By country
The UK, France, and Germany lead in funding for female-founded companies, while Finland and Denmark have the highest proportion of venture capital allocated to them.
27% of all venture capital deployed into female-founded companies in Europe went to companies headquartered in the UK.
Female founders in the UK, France, and Germany raised 58% of all venture capital in Europe in 2024.
Finland (30%), Denmark (20%), Norway (17%), and Austria (17%) have the highest proportions of venture capital deployed into female-founded companies in Europe.
Hiring
Hiring this week:
Cozero ➯ Customer Success Lead | Dexory ➯ Sales Director | Exakt ➯ (Junior) Marketing & Community Manager | Native Teams ➯ Business Analyst.
Events this Week
Monday, March 10, London ➯ Funding the Future of AI and Blockchain | Tuesday, March 11, Amsterdam ➯ Creating for a Sustainable Future | Wednesday, March 12, Paris ➯ Healthcare x AI | Thursday, March 13, London ➯ International Entrepreneurs' Meetup | Friday, March 14, Paris ➯ The New Nordics Edge.
On March 17th we are partnering with Antler, JV Network, Radia & Albion VC for an exclusive networking breakfast for female founders. Joining us will be Oana Andreea Jinga, the co-founder at Dexory. Oana will share insights from her journey founding and scaling Dexory, a digital twin and autonomous robots company that has raised over $110M since 2015.
It was a great week. Have a great weekend
Agata
Written by Agata Leliwa Nowicka, the Managing Partner of the Visionaries AI Incubator, an investor, a startup adviser, a two-time entrepreneur based in London.
♡ Thank you Alice for helping out with the research!
Suggestions? Drop me an email.
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