The Miami-area is where you want to be if you're a female founder raising capital in Florida.
South Florida technology startups with at least one woman founder captured $596 million across 66 deals during the first three quarters of 2022, according to Pitchbook's fourth annual "All In: Female Founders in the U.S. VC Ecosystem" report. That's more than half of the $922 million invested in female-founded startups across the state during the same period.
Although venture capital funding surged in recent years, funding for female-led ventures has not increased at the same pace.
There's some progress: Nationally, startups led by mixed-gender teams closed $32.4 billion in deal value between January and October, the second-highest year on record for those raises. But investment to companies with all-female founders was far less at $3.6 billion, just 2.3% of the $154.9 billion raised by all-male founded ventures this year.
Still, it was a strong year for startups with female leaders. Angel investment and unicorn deal value among women-founded companies reached their second highest annual levels, Pitchbook reports. And companies led by women continue to outperform the broader market when it comes to the median time it takes to exit at 7.2 years, compared to all 8.1 years for all startups.
Despite those wins, startups with female founding teams still represent only 25% of the total VC deal count within the broader ecosystem – down from 26.4% in 2021.
"This year’s [report]...continues to demonstrate that women and gender-diverse teams outperform others in terms of earlier exits and higher valuations, even in a down-market," said Shelly Porges, cofounder and managing partner at Beyond The Billion, one of the sponsors of the Pitchbook report. "What does it take for investors to act on this data to ensure they not only have female founders in their deal flow but also founders being approved by their investment committees?"
Beyond the Billions is a consortium of venture funds that direct capital to female founders. J.P. Morgan, Pivotal Ventures and Apex Group also sponsored the report.
Some other takeaways from the report:
- In South Florida, companies with mixed-gender teams raised more capital than all-female teams. Startups with a male and female founder secured $564 million across 51 deals, compared to $32 million across 15 deals for companies solely founded by women.
- Software firms captured about 37% of the capital directed to local, female-founded startups.
- Tampa was the second-best Florida market for female founders, with $170 million invested across 22 deals. Orlando followed, with $100 million across six deals.
- The San Francisco area led the nation for VC investments to companies with at least one woman founder, with $9.1 billion invested across 475 deals. However, only $1.1 billion of that amount went to ventures with all-female founder teams.
- New York City ($4.9 billion across 475 deals), Los Angeles ($3.3 billion, 251 deals), Boston ($3.7 billion, 194 deals), and San Jose ($2.3 billion, 129 deals) rounded out the Top 5 markets for companies with female leaders.
- One reason more female founders aren't getting funding? Not enough women are writing the checks. Venture capital is still a male-dominated industry, according to Pitchbook, which reports only 16.1% of venture capital decision markers in the U.S. are women. In addition, just 4.5% of venture capital firms have decision makers who are primarily women.
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