Entrepreneur
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
The Women’s Health Innovation Summit (WHIS), the event uniting the global women’s health ecosystem, has just announced 18 new speakers joining the agenda for its 2026 summit, taking place October 13–15 at Encore Boston Harbor.
The latest additions bring further depth across pharma, clinical research, health systems, venture, and policy, reinforcing WHIS’s role as the only platform where the full women’s health ecosystem convenes under one roof.
Newly confirmed speakers include:
- Kelle Moley, MD – VP, Women’s Health Early Phase Clinical Development, Cardiometabolic Research, Eli Lilly & Company
- Justine Levin-Allerhand – Executive Partner, Chief Corporate Development Officer & COO, Flagship Labs, Flagship Pioneering
- Sebnem Yildirimoglu, MD, PMP – Executive Director, Women’s Health Strategy, Premier Research
- Terri Stewart – Head of Global Healthcare & Government Affairs, EMD Serono
- Dr. Morag Grassie – Executive Director, Blavatnik Fund for Innovation, Yale
- Sandra Butler – Director, Design Impact, Mass General Brigham
- Zhenya Lindgardt – Chief Executive Officer, Sera Prognostics
- Sadie Morahan – Head of US Revenue, Withings Health Solutions
- Angela Drew, PhD – Vice President, Regulatory Strategy, Premier Research
- Dr. Stephanie Lahr – CMIO, Aqurio
- Michelle Andrews – Contributing Writer, KFF Health News
- Charlotte Williams – CEO, My Bump Hub
- Clint Dart, MS – Director, NIH Women’s Health Data Coordinating Center, Premier Research
- Cass Sanford – US Venture Advisor, FemTech Lab
- Megan Mukuria – Founder & CEO, ZanaAfrica
- Tiffany Inglis, MD, FACOG – Chief Medical Officer, Sera Prognostics
- Angelean Hendrix, PhD – Vice President, Pharmacometrics and MIDD, Premier Research
- Amanda Ducach – CEO & Co-founder, EmaEQ
“WHIS is where the women’s health industry comes together to take action,” said Poppy Howard-Wall, Event Director at WHIS.
“This latest wave of speakers reflects exactly the kind of cross-sector expertise our attendees expect – from global pharma and clinical research leadership to venture, health systems, and grassroots innovation.
“It’s this breadth that makes WHIS the room where things actually move forward.”
Bringing the Full Ecosystem Together
These additions join a growing 2026 agenda spanning four content tracks that reflect the full lifecycle of healthcare innovation, from early-stage research and development through to patient delivery, system transformation, and commercial scale.
Attendees can expect over 1,000 senior decision-makers, 120+ expert speakers, four dedicated stages, and more than 10 hours of curated 1:1 meetings.
Full speaker and agenda details are available at whisusa.com/speakers-2026.
About WHIS
The Women’s Health Innovation Summit is the only platform uniting the full women’s health ecosystem – providers, payers, employers, pharma leaders, investors, and innovators -to increase deal flow, expand reimbursement, improve access, and deliver better outcomes for women at every stage of life.
Medtech startup Peripear has won an Innovate UK award for developing a wearable designed to prevent perineal trauma during childbirth.
The Oxford-based company is developing a hands-free warm compress device for use on the perineum during the second stage of labour.
Peripear describes its product as the world’s first automated perineal thermotherapy wearable, designed to prevent perineal trauma during childbirth.
The device is intended to reduce severe tearing and episiotomies while improving maternal comfort.
Peripear has secured an Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award and a £74,974 grant.
The funding will support further product development ahead of the company’s planned first-in-human study.
Nina van Schaick, co-founder and chief operating officer of Peripear and midwife, said: “I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to see this gap.
“I was incredibly lucky to meet my co-founder, Eviatar Natan, right as my frustration about the lack of translation of evidence into practice had peaked.
“There was a proven mechanism that could reduce injuries occurring in up to 90 per cent of vaginal births, and it was being left out of clinical pathways simply because no standardised tool existed to deliver it.
“I’m a farmer’s granddaughter, and when I started practising over 14 years ago, I asked: where is the tool I need to implement this evidence? I looked around and realised we were still asking clinicians to improvise.
“Peripear is what happens when the person who has lived the problem, both personally and professionally, meets the person who can help her build the solution.”
Entrepreneur
Applications close August 18 for Women’s Health Innovation Summit 2026 Innovation Showcase
The Women’s Health Innovation Summit (WHIS) has reminded startups that applications for its 2026 Innovation Showcase close on Tuesday, August 18.
The Showcase gives early and growth-stage companies the opportunity to pitch live on stage to the most influential audience in women’s health, at a summit that convenes more than 1,000 senior decision-makers from across the ecosystem, including payers, providers, pharma, and investors.
Now in its eighth year, WHIS takes place October 13–15, 2026 at Encore Boston Harbor.
The event has built a reputation as the leading platform uniting the full women’s health ecosystem, from health systems and health plans to pharmaceutical leaders and the investors funding the next wave of innovation in the space.
A Direct Line to Funding, Partnerships and Adoption
Companies selected for the Innovation Showcase will present directly to an audience with the capital, clinical expertise and commercial relationships to move deals forward.
Past participants have gone on to secure investor introductions, commercial partnerships and clinical collaborations that started as presentations on the WHIS stage and turned into signed agreements.
Applications Reviewed by an Expert Selection Committee
Submissions are being reviewed by a selection committee of leading investors and industry operators, including:
- Parambir Bhangu, Executive Director, External Innovation & Emerging Science, Organon
- Elizabeth Bailey, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Foreground Capital
- Karla Loken, Founder, Loken and Associates
- Mané Mikayelyan, Associate Partner, DeciBio
- Anna Valcheva, Founder, Managing Director & CEO, Astra Ventures
- Azin Radsan van Alebeek, Co-founder & General Partner, Emmeline Ventures
WHIS is where the women’s health ecosystem comes together to get deals done,” said Poppy Howard-Wall, Event Director of WHIS.
How to Apply
Early and growth-stage companies across digital health, therapeutics, diagnostics, med device and consumer health are encouraged to apply before the August 18 deadline.
Full details and the application form are available at whisusa.com/attend/start-ups.
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