Startups created or led by women received 6.43% of the $27.85 billion in Web3 venture capital (VC) investments in the past two years.
According to a Jan. 11 report by Bitget Research, female-led Web3 startups received $1.77 billion of the $27.85 billion in Web3 VC from Q1 2022 to Q3 2023. That means male-led startups received $26.08 billion in funding. Simultaneously, female-led Web3 startups comprised just under 9% of all startup firms in the sector. For the purposes of the study, a "female-led blockchain startup" referred to a blockchain startup where at least 50% of its executives were women.
Irrespective of gender, VC funding for blockchain firms entered a broad decline starting in 2022, with total funding falling from roughly $6.4 billion in Q1 2022 to a low of $2 billion in Q2 2023 before slightly rebounding the following quarter. Despite the recovery, researchers noted:
"8.2% of funding for female-led blockchain startups as of Q3 2023 is 2.5 times lower than the overall figure for startups in various fields (20.3%). This indicates the need for comprehensive measures to increase the inclusiveness and accessibility of the blockchain sphere for women."
As told by Bridget Greenwood, the founder of The Bigger Pie, a U.K.-based networking organization that supports women in blockchain globally, the amount of overall VC funding allocated to women in the country is even lower: "I stumbled over the appalling statistic that of all VC funding [in the U.K.], only 3% goes to female founders, 8% goes to mixed teams, and the rest goes to all-male teams," she said.
A team of Canadian and American researchers conducted an experiment that found venture capitalists, who are predominantly male, are biased against displays of feminine-stereotyped behaviors by entrepreneurs.
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