Even for female startup founders, the AI race defines the capital haves and have-nots

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Female-founded companies raised a collective $73.6 billion in the US in 2025, nearly twice the 2024 total and the most ever for the industry.

But behind this headline, the reality is less rosy. Two companies, Anthropic and Scale AI (whose female co-founder, Lucy Guo, left in 2018), together collected 40% of those dollars. Set them aside, and female-founded teams raised only $42.8 billion, according to PitchBook’s 2025 US All In Report—less than they did in 2021 or 2022.

Still, female-founded companies excluding Scale AI and Anthropic raised roughly 13% more venture dollars in 2025 than the year before, per PitchBook data.

“That suggests there is underlying momentum behind the headline-grabbing AI rounds,” said Annemarie Donegan, a PitchBook senior custom research analyst and the author of the report.

But that momentum varies by sector and other startup characteristics. Deal count for female-founded companies is now in its fourth year of decline, hitting the lowest annual level since 2018.

And for the first time in six years, fundraising trends for all-female teams did not mirror the overall trend in startup fundraising. While all-male founding teams raised 21% more capital than the previous year in the US, all-female founding teams raised 22% less capital.

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There’s likely a combination of factors driving this decline, namely the industry’s significant shift toward investing in AI startups at the expense of other sectors, such as consumer and biotech, where female founders are more represented, according to the research. The dramatic bifurcation of capital may be widening the funding gap for female founders, according to Leslie Feinzaig, founder of VC firm Graham & Walker and the Female Founders Alliance.

“Capital is increasingly going to founders that have a very particular profile,” said Feinzaig about the buzz around AI researchers setting up new startups. “To the extent that there are women who fit that profile, they are partaking in those large, hot rounds. I just think that there’s probably fewer of them.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the Female Founders Alliance. (March 11, 2026)