Female founders hold less than 10% of startup patents, research finds

Female founders account for fewer than one in 10 startup patent applications in Europe, a study on women in innovation has found.

A Europe-wide study has highlighted how little progress has been made in increasing the number of women recognised as inventors.

Data compiled to build a Europe-wide picture of women in STEM found that fewer than 10 per cent of startup founders applying for patents are women.

That does not mean there are no success stories. One example is Chloe So of PulpaTronics, whose business secured 14th place in this year’s Startups 100 Index.

The venture rose from 48th place the previous year as its metal-free paper RFID tags gained traction.

However, the latest report suggests So is in the minority and that many women are still not getting their names on patents.

The findings come from the EPO Observatory on Patents and Technology and are based on information from 22 national patent offices, as well as data from initiatives being developed at national level in Europe to support women in STEM.

It found that the share of women among inventors in Europe has increased only marginally in recent years, reaching 13.8 per cent in 2022, up 0.8 per cent from 2019.

The UK women inventor rate was 13.7 per cent, just below the European average.

The report also broke the data down by sector and found that women’s participation varies widely. T

he highest proportion of women inventors was in pharmaceuticals at 34.9 per cent, followed by biotechnology at 34.2 per cent and food chemistry at 32.3 per cent.

The figures suggest life sciences is the area where women inventors are most strongly represented.

That contrasts sharply with engineering ventures, where the levels were much lower.

Among machine tools inventors, just 5.7 per cent were women, while only 4.9 per cent of mechanical elements patents were filed by women.

Researchers found, however, that women are increasingly represented in inventor teams, rising from 21.6 per cent in 2019 to 24.1 per cent in 2022.

However, “they remain far less likely to be named as individual inventors or patenting startup founders,” the team said.

The data show that women account for only 10.8 per cent of founders in UK patenting startups, whereas around 14 per cent of startup teams include at least one woman founder.

When startups without patents are analysed, women account for 20.4 per cent of founders.

This points to significant underrepresentation of women among patent owners, and the EPO said that “structural factors, such as sector specialisation, company maturity, and growth stages,” are having a profound impact.

The issue is not that women are absent from entrepreneurship, but that barriers remain to becoming the founders whose names are listed on patents.

Some UK regions are performing above average.

Buckinghamshire ranked eighth among the 30 European regions analysed for women’s participation in inventorship.

It recorded a women inventor rate of 17.9 per cent, indicating that nearly one in five inventors named in European patent applications from the region are women. That was above both the UK and European average.

The EPO team found that universities and public research organisations have by far the highest proportion of women inventors at 24.4 per cent, while smaller businesses show the lowest participation rates.

The researchers also identified funding as a key pressure point.

“Companies co-founded by women appear to face greater challenges in scaling,” the EPO said.

“Women’s representation declines in later, more advanced funding rounds and for successfully acquired firms.”

The barriers women face over funding are already well documented.

A year ago, reporting on advanced tech and AI found that the average industry experience required for female founders to win VC funding was 18 years. For men, the figure was typically nine years.

The same pattern can be seen elsewhere.

Just last week, reporting on a large study by Female Founders Rise found that 45 per cent of female founders said access to funding was the primary obstacle to getting their businesses off the ground.

The EPO researchers did find that newer startups have higher shares of women founders. This was more than 14 per cent for younger ventures, compared with around 5.9 per cent for companies more than 20 years old.

That suggests the ideas are there, but the funding process has become what the original report described as a leaky pipeline that blocks progress.

This may be even more acute at a time when innovation is said to be under pressure across the wider startup ecosystem.

EPO president António Campinos said: “There is an obvious gain for Europe in boosting women’s participation in innovation.

He added: “Diversity is not a nice-to-have, it is fuel for breakthrough innovation.”

However, he also referred to “persistent roadblocks in our path to progress” that have been in place for so long that they appear difficult to overcome.