Despite unique and persistent barriers, these female founders are building organizations, reimaging solutions to everyday challenges and breaking the glass ceiling.
The valuations of US female-founded companies rose across all stages in 2024, and the exit count of female-founded companies ticked up in 2024 while other exit values remained compressed. Still, companies founded solely by women garnered just 1% of total capital invested in US venture-backed startups last year, according to PitchBook’s US female founders dashboard—down from 2% in 2023. Female founders in Europe came in slightly lower at .5%, down from 1.8% in 2023.
Even though US VC funding for female-founded or cofounded companies secured more capital in 2024, $45.9 billion compared to 2023’s $40.8 billion, an anti-DEI wave threatens to hold back female founders moving forward. In PitchBook’s latest All In report, our analysts say that many of the entry points for female founders—including funds dedicated to investing in underrepresented founders—may potentially be under legal threat under the Trump administration. Rising above the fray, 13 new female-founded unicorns were minted last year, and VCs have been aggressively courting several others.
All to say, the VC ecosystem remains homogenous, and this list is meant to celebrate female entrepreneurship and innovation across the globe. We’ve included founders, entrepreneurs, VCs, angel investors, mentors, and others involved in bringing scalable ideas, products, and offerings to market. This is a community-generated list—to learn more about how we put this list together or to submit a name for consideration for the next update, scroll to the end of the article.
REPORT
2024 US All In: Female Founders in the VC Ecosystem
Our latest All In report digs into representation at the GP level, female angel investments, female-founded unicorns, the exit scene, and more. Download the report
Femtech startups develop a range of health software and tech-enabled products that cater to female biological needs. A subcategory of healthtech, this vertical highlights the historical and systemic exclusion of women’s health needs in the healthcare industry. PitchBook tracks nearly 2,000 companies within this space—across those, VC funding for femtech startups grew slightly in 2024, with companies garnering $1.61 billion—up from $1.19 billion in 2023.
BLOG POST
What is femtech?
Explore the rise of femtech, the vertical’s history, new companies in the space, and top investors. Read the blog
Aagya Mathur
Cofounder and CEO of New York-based Aavia with Aya Suzuki and Alexis Wong, an app that helps people with periods learn about their cycles and mental health trends, as well as a smart birth control pill case.
Adrianna Nickerson
CEO and cofounder, along with Elaine Purcell, of Oula, operator of modern maternity care clinics that combine the best of obstetrics and midwifery care to deliver a personalized experience.
Alice Pelton
Founder of The Lowdown, a London-based digital platform that allows people to report and rate the contraceptive methods they've tried, as well as their effects, symptoms, and side effects. Touted as the world's first review platform for contraception, the company's mission is personal to Pelton. It took her more than a decade to realize the impact that hormonal contraceptives had on her emotional and mental state. Her search for the right contraception caused even more confusion due to a lack of data available online.
Cynthia Plotch
Cofounder with Jamie Norwood of Winx Health a startup that provides convenient, discreet access to health products—including pregnancy and ovulation tests, and UTI and yeast infection products.
Dojin Kim
Cofounder with Henny Boo and CEO of Happy Moonday, the top period-product subscription service in Korea—offering pads, tampons and a menstruation management app.
Gina Bartasi
Founder and executive chairman of Kindbody a provider of fertility, gynecology, and family-building services at its own private clinics and network of partner clinics. Bartasi is a seasoned entrepreneur and four-time CEO. She's also the mom of twin boys conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). She founded Kindbody in 2018 in response to the demand among employers to buy fertility benefits directly from healthcare providers.
Ivana Muncie-Vasic
Founder and CEO of Vitra Labs, a venture-backed startup on a mission to curb the rise in infertility by making IVF accessible to everyone.
Jerrica Kirkley
Cofounder and chief medical officer of Plume, a Denver-based provider of gender-affirming hormone therapy via telehealth. Along with co-founder and CEO Matthew Wetschler, Kirkley founded Plume to make the process of seeking and receiving gender-affirming care less daunting, confusing, and exhausting. The startup aims to provide simple, safe, and convenient care and an environment where patients' identities are always respected. Most recently, Plume raised $24 million of series B venture funding in a deal led by Transformation Capital in August 2022.
Kanika Agarwal
Cofounder of Mind Peers, a New Delhi-based self-care platform that offers tracking tools for mood and emotional patterns, as well as connects users to a range of mental health professionals.
Laura Katz
Founder and CEO of Helaina, a company that produces human-milk proteins to provide immunity benefits similar to breast milk.
Maya Hardigan
Founder and CEO of Mae, a digital health platform that provides birth planning tools, doula consults, and a marketplace of culturally competent maternal health experts and tools.
Oriana Papin-Zoghbi
Cofounder and CEO of AOA Dx, a Boston area biotech startup that developed the first early-stage ovarian liquid biopsy diagnostic test.
Sabrina Walls
Cofounder of HeyFlow, with Sophia Creese, an English startup that helps business owners build inclusive companies by understanding the impact of women’s reproductive health in the workplace.
Samantha Diamond
Cofounder and CEO of Toronto's Bird&Be, the developer of prenatal vitamins and supplements, as well as pregnancy, ovulation, ovarian reserve, and sperm concentration testing kits starting in late 2021.
Shobhita Narain
Cofounder and COO with Shashwata Narain at Veera Health, a provider of healthcare services intended to help women with polycystic ovary syndrome in India.
Female founders in sustainability, sustainable cities, and transportation
The founders submitted for inclusion in this section are working across sustainable city-building and mobility—from tracking and lessening urban pollution to making electric vehicles and bikes more accessible. To explore one of the industries covered in this section in more depth, download PitchBook’s Q4 2024 Mobility Tech Report.
Alison Rogers Cove
Founder and CEO of Boston’s USEFULL, a startup that manufactures tech-enabled, stainless steel takeout solutions as a replacement for single-use food and beverage containers.
Carola Jonas
Founder of Everty, the developer of an electric vehicle charging network platform created to accelerate Australia's transition to sustainable transportation.
Davida Herzl
Cofounder, CEO, and president of Aclima, the San Francisco-based leader in hyperlocal air quality and greenhouse gas measurement and analysis. Aclima translates billions of measurements from its network of stationary and roving sensors into block-by-block environmental intelligence on CO2, methane, and other pollutants, helping governments, communities, and enterprises take bold action to reduce emissions and protect public health.
Emily Brooke
Founder and chair of Beryl, a developer of urban cycling products headquartered in London. Beryl's offerings are designed to remove barriers and inspire people to ride bikes in cities.
Etosha Cave
Cofounder along with Kendra Kuhl and Nicholas Flanders, and Chief Scientific Officer, of Twelve, a Bay Area startup that makes materials and fuels from CO2 instead of fossil fuels.
Evette Ellis
Cofounder, along with Kameale C. Terry, of ChargerHelp!, a Los Angeles-based startup that fixes and maintains electric vehicle charging stations and networks.
Jennifer Stucko
Founder, CEO, and creative director of PROTA FIORI, a women’s luxury footwear brand created sustainably—with apple and grape skins—and made in Italy.
Liz Gilligan
Founder and CEO of Material Evolution, a Belfast-based startup that creates sustainable alternatives to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) using geopolymer technology. With around four billion tons produced annually, cement also produces billions of tons of CO2—roughly 8% of global CO2 emissions. The company's product is made from 95% industrial waste, and it's stronger, more durable, cheaper and reduces the carbon consumption of concrete by 85% when compared to its OPC equivalents. Material Evolution was founded in 2017, and Gilligan brings decades of experience in project management, regulation and construction to her startup.
Joanna McFarland
Cofounder and CEO of HopSkipDrive, a Los Angeles-based startup that supports youth transportation needs for schools, government agencies, families, and others.
Michelle Zhu
Cofounder and CEO of Huue, a biotech startup that's creating sustainable dyes for industries that are shaping the future of the Earth. More specifically, the company's website says the indigo blue that gives denim jeans their iconic look is a major polluter made with toxic ingredients. Huue's biosynthetic indigo has five times less toxicity potential compared to chemical sources, but is just as effective and easy for jean-makers to implement.
Teisha Vandekop
Founder and COO of Well Water Finders, an Austin-based company that makes groundwater detection easy, accurate, and affordable. The startup helps landowners determine water availability before they drill and counties monitor aquifer levels.
Tessa Callaghan
CEO and cofounder, with Aleks Gosiewski of Keel Labs, a sustainable materials company built on the premise of mirroring the natural efficiency of marine ecosystems. Their flagship product called Kelsun™ fiber is seaweed-based and the process of making it has a lower environmental footprint than legacy fibers. Callaghan and Gosiewski founded the startup as design students in 2017 who sought a way to tackle the issue of textile wasted in the fashion industry. They decided to create a solution to tackle the root of the issue: the materials.
Female founders in agriculture and the future of food
From insect-based foods and alt-proteins to soil science and food waste diversion, the founders suggest by our readers for this section are developing products and services that impact what we cultivate, harvest, buy and eat. For additional insight on related topics, download PitchBook’s recent Emerging Tech Research reports on agtech and foodtech.
Jasmine Crowe-Houston
Founder and CEO of Atlanta's Goodr, a food waste management software that provides a secure ledger that tracks an organization's surplus food from pick up to donation, delivering real-time social and environmental impact reporting analytics. The Goodr model aims to improve an organization's bottom line through charitable tax donations, reducing its greenhouse gas emissions from landfills and getting its edible surplus food to local communities in need. Crowe has been honored at the NAACP Image Awards, gave a TEDx talk and was included on The Root's “Root 100” list of most influential African Americans.
Jessica Regan
Cofounder and CEO of FoodMesh, a Vancouver-based food recovery startup that matches surplus commercial food with businesses and charities to reduce food waste.
Karen Scofield Seal
CEO and cofounder of OCEANIUM, a startup that develops bio-packaging and food products from sustainably farmed seaweed. Based in Oban, Scotland and London, OCEANIUM supports seaweed farmers across Europe and the world and mitigates climate change through the creation of innovative, all-natural products made from seaweed. Most recently, OCEANIUM raised $11 million of Series A venture funding from Regeneration VC.
Kerry Song
Founder and CEO of Abbot's Butcher, a California startup offering artisan, 100% plant-based vegan meat alternatives—including Spanish smoked “chorizo,” savory ground “beef” and slow-roasted chick'n.
Lisa Dyson
Founder and CEO of Air Protein, the developer of a meat alternative technology designed to create protein out of ordinary carbon dioxide. Dyson is also the co-founder and CEO of Kiverdi.
Cofounder and CPO at Loam Bio, an Australian startup whose microbial carbon sequestration technology is designed to capture carbon from the atmosphere and return it to the soil. Increased carbon in the soil restores farmland and creates opportunities for farmers to trade a new commodity: sequestered carbon. Nock has a background in agricultural policy and communications, having worked with research groups, government entities, and research organizations. Loam Bio raised $73.5 million of series B venture funding in a February 2023 deal led by Lowercarbon Capital and Wollemi.
Tinia Pina
Founder and CEO of Re-Nuble, the developer of an agricultural technology that transforms unrecoverable food byproducts into organic fertilizer.
Female founders in mentorship and coaching, student success, and career-readiness
Flagged by our community, the founders highlighted here play an important role in facilitating learning and growth opportunities—both personal and professional. From supporting students’ unmet education and transportation needs to providing guidance, job training, business support and network-building, founders working in these spaces cultivate curiosity, passion and professionalism that’ll last into the future.
Halleemah Nash
Founder of Rosecrans Ventures, a Los Angeles-based company providing professional and developmental support for Gen Z students of color through internship matches, professional coaching, and more.
Melissa Cash
Cofounder and CEO of Toronto’s Pok Pok, an app for preschoolers that’s dedicated to helping raise the next generation of creative thinkers through play.
Nicole Jarbo
Cofounder of New Orleans-based 4.0, an incubator that connects, coaches, and invests in people to test new learning spaces and tools in their communities. Prior to 4.0, Jarbo was the cofounder of Oakland's Boost, an all-in-one tool that helps Gen Z side-hustlers run their businesses and manage their finances in one place. She holds a bachelor's degree in anthropology and a master's in education, both from UC Berkeley.
Reedah El-Saie
Founder and CEO of BrainSparkGames, an early-stage startup that’s building an eduverse of free, culturally nuanced, 3D-immersive mobile games aligned with the British national curriculum for 7- to 13-year-olds.
Female founders in skincare, wellness, and makeup
The founders suggested for this section are creating goods and services to support peoples’ wellness and self-care journeys. From skincare and shaving products to fitness programs, these founders are empowering their users and clients to feel their best.
Julia Steigerwald
Founder of JUNO & Me, a German skincare, self-care, and personal hygiene startup whose product lines are 100% vegan and animal-friendly.
Karen Young
Founder and CEO of the direct-to-consumer shaving and bodycare brand OUI the People, based in Brooklyn. OUI the People's product offerings include razors, shaving oils, and high-quality blades for a smoother shave. The startup joined Andreessen Horowitz as part of its Talent x Opportunity Program's first cohort in October 2020. The company raised $3 million in venture funding in February 2022 from multiple investors. In December 2022, it joined Sephora Accelerate’s 2023 cohort, though no funding or equity was exchanged for this program.
Nina Atimah
Founder and CEO of VOUEE, a skincare startup that offers premium, gentle, and effective skincare products for melanin-rich skin.
Sadie Kurzban
Founder and CEO of 305 Fitness, a chain of fitness centers headquartered in New York City that offers cardio workouts combining dance moves, sports drills, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT).
Taran Ghatrora
Cofounder and CEO of Blume, a Vancouver-based startup offering self-care, skincare, and personal-hygiene products—including for first-time period-havers.
Female founders in H20 innovations
The founders submitted for inclusion in this category work in a variety of capacities related to water, including watershed management, water systems monitoring, water access and sustainable packaging alternatives. PitchBook tracks a handful of verticals and emerging spaces related to water-related technologies, including cleantech, renewable ocean energy, and desalination tech. For the latest on cleantech in particular, download PitchBook’s Q4 2024 Emerging Tech Research Clean Energy Report.
Jess Page
Cofounder along with Nicole Doucet and Chief Brand Officer of Open Water, the world's first climate neutral bottled-water company. The team looked at various materials, from glass to plant-based plastics to cartons, before settling on aluminum. Aluminum cans are the most recycled beverage packaging in the world—but no one was using them for water back in 2011 when the Chicago-based startup was founded. You can learn more about Open Water and its founders in our Q&A with Jess Page and Nicole Doucet.
Julie Bliss Mullen
Founder and CEO of Aclarity, a startup that designs, integrates, and deploys proprietary electrochemical water treatment systems to effectively destroy a wide breadth of contaminants in wastewater.
Macarena Cataldo
Cofounder of Viridis Research, a startup that provides water treatment products and services to ensure communities around the world have access to clean, safe, sufficient water.
Meena Sankaran
Founder and CEO of KETOS, a water analytics technology designed to measure, manage, and forecast water quality and efficiency in agricultural, industrial, and municipal applications.
Megan Casey Glover
Cofounder and CEO of 120Water, a platform that combines cloud-based software and digital sampling kits to help detect harmful contaminants—including lead, arsenic and nitrate—in water supplies.
Female founders in fintech
Founders of fintech companies, including those suggested by our readers here, are using the internet, algorithms, and blockchain and software technologies to offer or facilitate financial services traditionally provided by banks. VC funding for fintech startups slowed in 2024, with startups in the space garnering $45.88 billion in funding—down from $50.9 billion in 2023, according to PitchBook Platform data.
Eli Polanco
Founder and CEO of Nivelo, a payment network that unlocks instant and safe income payments, helping businesses optimize their cash flows and pay their workers on time. Polanco also serves as a board member at Tech:NYC, an engaged network of tech leaders across New York's tech economy. Prior to Nivelo, she worked in various positions at J.P. Morgan for more than a decade, including as the head of banking product at the Blockchain Center of Excellence and VP and technical product manager of the new product and emerging technologies R&D lab.
Laura Spiekerman
Cofounder and president of Alloy, an API-based platform that helps innovative banks and fast-growing fintech companies grow and scale operations by empowering them to find customers without increasing the risk of fraud.
Maika Isogawa
Cofounder and CEO of Webacy, a Web3 blockchain infrastructure safety platform built to help manage users’ crypto, social, and other digital assets after they pass away. More recently, the San Francisco-based startup’s offerings expanded to include providing crypto users with a “panic button” to protect their wallets against hacks and scams.
Female founders in health, biotech, and medicine
These innovators are part of the fast-growing healthtech space. Healthtech companies provide mobility and other information technologies to improve healthcare delivery while decreasing costs. Startups in this space—of which PitchBook tracks 25,000+—often have crossover into sectors like cloud computing, internet services, and social mobility to optimize patient-centered healthcare. For recent developments in medtech in particular, download a copy of PitchBook’s Q4 2024 Emerging Tech Research Medtech VC and PE Trends Report.
Elizabeth Burstein
CEO and cofounder of Neura Health, an all-in-one benefits solution to virtually manage chronic neurological conditions affecting millions of Americans.
Jen Asher
Founder and CEO of 1910 Genetics, a biotech company integrating AI, computation, and biological automation to accelerate the design of small molecule and protein therapeutics.
Julia Hu
CEO and cofounder of Lark Health, a leading chronic disease prevention and management platform using AI health coaching to deliver better outcomes at scale.
Juliana Hilliard
Cofounder and CSO of Parallel Bio, which created a human “immune system in a dish” to discover drugs and immunotherapies more likely to work in patients.
Liz O'Day
Founder, CSO, and CEO of Olaris, a precision diagnostic company that uses a metabolite profiling platform and AI to empower patients with the knowledge that they're on the optimal treatment path.
Nabiha Saklayen
Cofounder and CEO at Cellino, the builder of a proprietary technology that makes personalized stem cell-derived therapies scalable for the first time.
Female founders pioneering new B2B solutions
Business-to-business (B2B) startups run the gamut in terms of the products and functionalities they’re building and what their target customer base looks like. While the other sections of this article do include B2B offerings nestled within various overarching industries (healthcare and fintech, for example), we’re bundling together some disparate—but nonetheless noteworthy—B2B companies here, too.
Anastasia Kuskova
Cofounder and CEO at Amsterdam’s Sirius, an AI sustainability intelligence startup for the mining, metals, and energy value chains.
Brittany Greenfield
Founder and CEO of Wabbi, a Boston-based cybersecurity startup that delivers scalable application security for enterprise development teams.
Emma Rees
Cofounder of Deployed, a collaborative statement of work platform designed to provide clarity and efficiency to statements of work.
Jacqueline Schafer
Founder and CEO of Clearbrief, a legal platform that helps litigators assess how their sentences are supported by evidence.
Joanathan McIntosh
Founder at Opaper, a Jakarta-based e-commerce technology company that manages online sales and sales from social media apps.
Liyana (Li) Sulaiman
Cofounder and chief product and technology officer with Melanie (Holohan) Vernoia of Pollen, a Singapore-based sustainable liquidation provider for brands looking to automate B2B sales of overstock and near-expiry inventory.
Nicole Sahin
Founder and CEO of Globalization Partners, whose SaaS platform enables companies to hire, onboard, pay, and manage team members quickly and compliantly.
Prukalpa Sankar
Cofounder of Singapore’s Altan, an AI governance platform that helps companies get their data AI-ready.
Purvanshi Mehta
Cofounder of San Francisco’s Lica World, an AI video producer tool that simplifies the process of creating and publishing videos for customer success, GTM, product, and sales teams.
Female investors
When female investors and VCs have a seat at the table, more female-founded startups get the funding support they need to grow and build thriving businesses. When it comes to shining a light on underrepresented groups across the private markets, these investors—all submitted by PitchBook’s blog readership—play a pivotal role in bringing innovative new solutions to market.
Adele (Cirone) Olivia
Founding partner at 1315 Capital, a private investment firm providing healthcare companies with expansion and growth capital. Oliva has led deals with Onkos Surgical and Colorescience, among others.
Almudena Trigo Lorenzo
Founding partner and chairwoman of Madrid’s BeAble Capital, a VC firm specializing in seed and early-stage investments in industrial deep tech startups.
Anu Duggal
Founding partner of Female Founders Fund, an early-stage VC fund that invests in female-founded technology companies—especially those in the digital health, education, and climate change.
Arian Simone
CEO and founding partner of the Fearless Fund, a fund that invests in women of color-led businesses seeking pre-seed, seed-level, or Series A financing.
Armine Galstyan
Principal at Armenia and Los Angeles-based SmartGateVC, a venture capital firm that focuses on pre-seed investments in AI.
Briana Hildt
Founder and CEO of Cardinal Capital Group, a Boston-based private money lender specializing in financing real estate transactions in northeastern US.
Caroline Lewis
Managing partner of Rogue Women's Fund I, an early seed-stage venture fund that invests in women-led tech companies across the US.
Carrie Colbert
Founder and general partner at of Curate Capital, a Houston-based venture capital fund for accelerating the success of companies by women and for women.
Cathy Bennett
Founding and co-managing partner at Sandpiper Ventures, a seed-stage VC funding headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia that invests in women and women’s innovation.
Cheryl Campos
Cofounder of VCFamilia along with Af Hernandez, a community of 200+ Latinx investors supporting current and emerging VCs and founders. Launched in January 2021 to address a lack of Hispanic and Latino representation in venture capital, VCFamilia has quickly become the industry's largest Latinx VC affinity group. In addition to her work at VCFamilia, Campos is an advisor at Republic, a private investing platform, and an investment partner at Next Wave NYC.
Chloe Sladden
Founding partner of #ANGELS, a San Francisco-based investment collective founded in 2015. Sladden advises startups and invests in early-stage companies, seeking out teams and products that can have a disproportionate impact. #ANGELS backs ambitious founders and their portfolio of 100+ includes Gusto, Coinbase, Carrot, Airtable, and more. Sladden is also the cofounder and co-CEO of Honeycomb Labs, a consumer software service that empowers families to share the logistics of parenting across dense, trusted communities.
Christine Tsai
CEO and founding partner of 500 Global, a global early-stage VC firm with a mission to uplift people and economies through entrepreneurship. Since 2010, she has led the growth of 500 Global to include $2.4 billion in AUM and a portfolio that includes 35 companies valued at more than $1 billion. With her expertise in development and APIs, marketing, social, and video, Tsai takes on a mentorship role with 500 Global's portfolio companies. Recently, the firm has invested in the seed rounds of Mexico’s YoFio and Singapore-based Prefer.
Carina Szpilka
General partner at KFund, a venture capital firm based in Madrid that invests in seed, pre-series A, and later-stage startups across B2B and B2C.
Deborah Buresh Jackson
Cofounder, with Andrea Turner Moffitt, and CEO of Plum Alley, a venture firm with offices in New York City and San Francisco. Plum Alley invests in women who develop breakthrough technologies in healthcare and sustainability to improve lives and the planet. Prior to cofounding Plum Alley, Jackson worked on Wall Street for two decades where she raised capital for her clients—starting at Goldman Sachs when it was a small partnership. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and is a champion for entrepreneurs, investors, and business executives.
Elena Bou
Cofounder, innovation director, and executive board member at EIT InnoEnergy, an impact investing firm in the Netherlands specializing in early-stage investments in climate tech and energy sector startups across Europe—like Germany's Pionierkraft and Skeleton Technologies. Bou is also an associate professor at ESADE Business & Law School in Barcelona, where her specialties include organizational and operational management and qualitative research.
Eve Burton
Executive vice president and chief legal officer at HearstLab, an accelerator/incubator whose mission is to close the gap in VC funding for women by helping founders build healthy, sustainable, and highly-scalable businesses.
Galit Horovitz
Cofounder and partner at WellTech Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Tel Aviv that invests exclusively in the wellness space.
Gülsüm Çıracı
Angel investor and general partner at Startupfon, an Istanbul-based VC fund and investment platform that facilitates opportunities for investors to co-invest in early-stage tech startups.
Hilary Gosher
Managing director at Insight Partners, a global private and growth equity firm investing in software and internet companies.
Janet Bannister
Founder and managing partner at Toronto’s Staircase Ventures, where she leads seed-stage rounds into Canada’s highest potential tech companies.
Venture partner at Estonia's Superangel, an angel group that invests in AI, robotics, mobility, logistics, fintech, and SaaS.
Kathryn Cavanaugh
Founder and managing partner at Capstar Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the next generation of innovative consumer companies.
Kristen Sonday
Partner at LongJump, a first-check venture fund in Chicago, and co-founder and CEO of Paladin, a platform that helps legal teams run more efficient pro bono programs.
Laura González-Estéfani
Founder and CEO of TheVentureCity, a Miami- and Madrid-based VC that invests in early-stage, mission-driven, and diverse founders.
Lauren (Katz) Rich
Managing director at Walfra, a New York-headquartered alternative investment firm currently managing $30 billion in assets and commitments across strategies.
Leslie Feinzaig
Founder and general partner of Graham & Walker, a Seattle-area venture firm that activates the potential of all women in business through programs, community, and early-stage capital investments.
Linda Greub
Managing partner at Avestria Ventures, a firm that invests in early-stage women's health and female-led life sciences startups.
Lindy Fishburne
Managing partner at Breakout Ventures along with Julia Moore, a VC firm that invests in early-stage bioscience entrepreneurs who are harnessing the power of cells to build solutions in human health and sustainability. Headquartered in San Francisco, Breakout Ventures most recently invested in Zymochem, Noetik, and ShiraTronics.
Lu Zhang
Founder and managing partner at Fusion Fund, a VC firm that invests in seed and pre-Series A companies who have technology barriers in their business models.
Maggie Vo
Managing general partner and CIO of Fuel Venture Capital, a Miami-based VC firm that’s founder-focused, investor-driven, and committed to creating positive impact across the modern economy.
Founder and CEO of Pipeline Angels, an angel network. Since 2011, members of the network have made 500+ investments, focusing on founders who are trans women, cis women, agender, gender nonconforming, nonbinary, and two-spirit.
Natalie Hwang
Founding managing partner at New York’s Apeira Capital, a VC firm that invests in later-stage tech companies.
Pocket Sun
Cofounder and managing partner at SoGal, one of the world's largest communities of diverse entrepreneurs and investors with 40+ chapters worldwide.
Rachel ten Brink
General partner and founder at Red Bike Capital, a New York-based early-stage VC fund that invests in verticals that are primed for disruption and growth.
Sara Choi
Partner at Wing VC, a Palo Alto-based early-stage venture firm that focuses on stealth, seed, and Series A financings in companies building the AI-first tech stack.
Sarah Brand, Ph.D.
Founding GP True Wealth Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund based in Austin that invests in women-led companies improving environmental and/or human health.
Sarah Kunst
Managing director of Cleo Capital, a Santa Monica-based VC firm founded in 2018. The firm's investment portfolio includes Cameo, MasterClass, BlocPower, and Love Wellness, among others. In addition to her role at Cleo Capital, Kunst is a contributing editor at Marie Claire and an investor board member at Venture for America—a program for talented grads with their sights on becoming entrepreneurs.
Sharon Vosmek
CEO of Astia and managing partner of the Astia Fund, both of which seek to level the playing field for women entrepreneurs by providing access to capital and networks.
Yasmin Cruz Ferrine
Cofounder and general partner at Visible Hands, a Boston-based pre-seed venture capital firm that invests in women and founders of color. Cruz Ferrine has 15 years of experience leading capital raising, investment strategies, and advising foundations. Prior to co-founding Visible Hands, which also offers a variety of fellowships and accelerators, her cross-sector experiences include working on a 2020 US presidential election campaign to serving as head of growth and strategy for Brown Advisory's New England region.
About PitchBook's female founders and investors list
When this article was first published in 2019, the female founders and investors included were sourced through an online research process. Although PitchBook now tracks female founders (not investors), the creation of this list predates that platform functionality.
Shortly thereafter, PitchBook blog readers began proactively reaching out to suggest themselves or someone in their network for inclusion. By 2022 and continuing through present, all new additions to this list are sourced from our community of readers. We invite your suggestions, too!
Suggest an addition
To submit a female founder or investor’s name for the next update of this post, please email [email protected] and include the following details:
The person’s name
The person’s title
The name of their company or firm
Links to their LinkedIn and/or Twitter/X profiles
Note that the article is organized to highlight founders whose companies can be categorized within an industry vertical or an emerging space tracked by PitchBook. We are happy to add new categories to the list when we’ve received enough inquiries from founders or people in their networks to necessitate the creation of a new section—typically three or more individuals.
We are thankful for the number of submissions we receive for this list—typically 100+ per year. Though we are unable to feature every person whose name is submitted, we appreciate every person who takes the time to reach out.
How often is this blog post updated?
Though you’re welcome to suggest a female founder or investor for this article anytime, we update it once annually each March. As part of its yearly update, we add 10-20 new names to this list—a mix of founders and investors—on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that with each annual update, some of the founders and investors highlighted in the previous year’s version of the list are omitted to keep the list fresh and create room to highlight a new slate of professionals from across the industry.
To reiterate, PitchBook does track female founders, but not female investors. Because this list is built exclusively with incoming suggestions from our readers, this annual re-verification process does not involve the same quality assurance (QA) operation that our platform data does. Though we try to be thorough, the article gets longer and longer each year. Don’t hesitate to reach out of you notice outdated information in a founder or investor blurb.
About the links in this list
In addition to using PitchBook-tracked industries and emerging spaces to inform the format of this article, many of the links included will point you to one of our profile previews. PitchBook’s profile previews provide a cursory sense of the types of data and insights PitchBook customers can access with their subscription to the platform—from funding details and active investments to investors with a stated preference in minority- and women-owned businesses.
All images were sourced from LinkedIn and Google. PitchBook does not own the rights to any of the images used in this post. If you’d like to have a photo removed, please contact us at [email protected].
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