Q1 momentum: Female founders are advancing, but the system still hasn’t caught up

By Melissa Wallace, CEO Fierce Foundry

The first quarter of 2026 tells a familiar but evolving story for female founders in the U.S.: measurable progress, paired with persistent structural gaps.

On the surface, the numbers suggest momentum.

A recent Pitchbook report showed female-founded companies captured 27.7 per cent of U.S. venture capital in 2025, up significantly from 19.9 per cent the year prior.

This is not a marginal shift, it reflects a broader recognition that women are building scalable, investable companies across sectors.

But the deeper cut tells a different story.

When you isolate companies founded solely by women, funding drops to just 1.1 per cent of total venture dollars.

As many of us continue to preach, this gap has remained largely unchanged for decades, hovering around 2 per cent on average.

This is the paradox: performance is not the issue—access is.

Research consistently shows that women-led companies generate stronger capital efficiency, yet they continue to receive a fraction of funding.

As Leslie Feinzaig has pointed out, the challenge is not a lack of ambition or quality, it’s that the system still evaluates women through a narrower lens, often expecting more proof, more traction, and more certainty before capital is deployed.

A Shift in How Women Are Getting Funded

What’s changed in Q1—and what’s most important—is not just how much funding is flowing, but how it’s being accessed.

Based on the data shared by Forbes in their 6 Trends Reshaping Women’s Health Investments this is what is clear:

• A rise of angel and operator capital: More women are entering the cap table as investors, not just founders, reshaping early-stage decision-making
• Alternative vehicles gaining traction: Donor-advised funds (DAFs), syndicates, and community-driven capital pools are stepping in where traditional VC has been slow
• Lower barriers to entry for investors: Smaller check sizes and structured angel education are expanding who participates in funding innovation

This diversification matters. Traditional venture capital has historically been concentrated both in who writes checks and what gets funded.

Broadening capital sources doesn’t just increase access; it changes what is considered “investable.”

At Fierce Foundry, this is a core assumption.

The venture studio model is not just about building companies, it’s about engineering capital access from day one.

By combining capital with shared services, investor networks, and early validation, the goal is to reduce the friction female founders face long before a Series A.

Why This Matters for Women’s Health

Nowhere is this shift more critical than in women’s health.

Despite being one of the fastest-growing sectors in healthcare, projected to exceed $200B globally in the next decade, FemTech and women’s health startups remain significantly underfunded. In 2024, only ~6 per cent of healthcare venture funding went to this category.

This disconnect is not due to lack of opportunity. In fact, the opposite is true.

Thanks to another incredible article from Geri Stenger in Forbes, we know women’s health has already generated over $100 billion in exits, with 27 billion-dollar transactions and increasing M&A activity.

This is not an emerging category, it is a proven one that has simply been misclassified, undercounted, and undervalued.

The implication is clear: capital is not flowing in proportion to outcomes.

The Role of New Models in Closing the Gap

This is where new models, particularly venture studios, are becoming essential.

The traditional startup pathway assumes equal access to networks, capital, and operational expertise.

Female founders, particularly in women’s health, are often navigating all three deficits simultaneously:

Limited access to early-stage capital

• Higher burden of proof in clinical and regulatory environments
• Fewer embedded operators with domain expertise
• The studio model addresses this by collapsing time and risk:

Co-building companies alongside founders

• Providing shared services across product, regulatory, and go-to-market
• Embedding investor alignment and exit pathways from the beginning

What Q1 Signals for the Future

If Q1 tells us anything, it’s that the narrative is shifting but the infrastructure is still catching up.

We are seeing:

• Increased participation of women across both sides of the cap table
• New funding mechanisms that challenge traditional VC gatekeeping
• Growing recognition that women’s health is not niche, but foundational

But we are also seeing that progress is uneven, and in many cases, still fragile.

The next phase of growth will not come from incremental increases in funding percentages.

It will come from rebuilding the systems that determine how capital flows in the first place. Because the real opportunity is not just funding more female founders.

It’s building an ecosystem where they don’t have to fight so hard to access what they’ve already proven they can return.

Learn more about Fierce Foundry at thefiercefoundry.com