African start-ups co-founded and led by women continue to be underrepresented, especially when it comes to later-stage financing, despite growing awareness and calls for inclusion.
According to data from Africa: The Big Deal, which analysed 2,808 equity deals worth over $14 billion since 2019, just 25 percent of those deals involved a start-up with at least one female co-founder.
This implies that in three out of four cases, the founding team was exclusively male. While the 25 percent representation seems encouraging at a glance, female-founded start-ups only attracted 17 percent of total funding during that period. In short, when they did manage to raise funds, they secured 1.5 times less than their male-only counterparts.
“Less than 2 percent of capital today is going into female businesses in Africa,” said Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes, founder of Aruwa Capital Management.
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The report highlighted that disparities grow sharper in leadership roles as only 13 percent of deals since 2019 involved a start-up with a female CEO, a role often held by a co-founder. These ventures received just over 5 percent of total capital, translating to an average raise 2.5 times lower than start-ups led by male CEOs.
“2024 recorded the worst gender equity ratios since tracking began, with female-led ventures comprising 14 percent of deals and receiving only 3 percent of the funding. The trend worsened in 2025 (January–May), where women-led start-ups accounted for just 9 percent of deals and a mere 0.9 percent of total capital raised,” the data insight firm that tracks funding of $100,000 and above said.
A cursory look at funding stages reveals that the gap grows wider as ventures mature. “At Series B and C, where average deal sizes hit $40 million, only 14 percent of deals involved female co-founded companies, and they received just 11 percent of the total capital.
“The figures are even more dismal for companies with female CEOs: only 5 percent of such deals, and just 4 percent of funding.”
Pre-seed funding presents a more balanced picture as 28 percent of deals and 24 percent of investment involved female co-founded start-ups, including 15 percent (10 percent) with a female CEO. This suggests the talent pipeline is being built, but it is not being sustained.
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“This is a pipeline issue’ is not really a valid excuse, the report stated. Since 2019, more than 700 funding rounds have included female co-founded ventures—two deals per week on average—attracting a combined $2.4 billion in investment.
“The core issue is that as female-led and co-founded ventures mature, they face greater difficulty attracting large and very large funding rounds,” Africa: The Big Deal said.
The report stated that early-stage investors have laid a foundation, albeit an imperfect one. Now, later-stage investors have an untapped opportunity which is one that could not only improve gender equity but also unlock the potential of a vastly underfunded segment of the startup ecosystem.
Sarah Ngamau, Managing Director and Partner at Moremi Fund, added, “We need audacious targets at both fund and portfolio levels. More female partners, more carry allocated to women, and portfolio benchmarks, like 20 percent female-founded companies to start, building toward 50 percent.”
