Female Founders Monitor 2025

The current monitor shows that the gender gap in the startup world already begins at university: While 40 percent of male students consider starting a business, only 21 percent of female students consider the same. Overall, women discover entrepreneurship later than men. They also more often face structural barriers. A possible explanation for the decline in female founders is that fact that women more often than their male counterparts found business models that directly address consumers – a segment of startups that currently suffers from consumer reluctance.

“We cannot afford to leave the potential of female founders untapped. More diversity in the start-up ecosystem not only means equal opportunities, but also more innovation and economic dynamism,” says Julia Scheerer, economic expert at the Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Despite positive developments in venture capital investments - the flow of capital into start-ups with at least one female founder has almost doubled since 2017 - the majority of funding (91%) still goes to all-male teams. In addition to finding capital, another key challenge for women remains balancing business development with care work. An overwhelming majority of both women (81%) and men (60%) in the startup ecosystem see compatibility of entrepreneurship and family life as a decisive factor for equality.

A startling finding of the monitor is the difference of awareness of the gender gap between men and women. 87 percent of female founders consider the fact that less than one in five startups is founded or co-founded by women as problematic. This contrasts with only 50% of men who share this view, particularly if they have founded in all male teams. This lack of problem awareness harbours the risk to actually increase inequality.

Male perspectives change when they have female co-founders. 64 percent of survey respondents from that recognize the gender gap as a problem. Promoting mixed start-up teams could therefore increase problem awareness, as well as influence diversity within the company as a whole.

The Female Founders Monitor identifies three key areas of action to attract more women to the start-up world:

1. Early awareness-raising and education: Female role models and targeted support programs in schools and universities can strengthen the entrepreneurial mindset of women and break down existing stereotypes.

2. Better framework conditions for compatibility: more flexible parental allowance regulations, targeted support for self-employed women on maternity leave and an increased offer of all-day care are needed to facilitate female entrepreneurship at a time when they start and support family.

3. More diversity in investor networks: Raising awareness of unconscious bias among venture capital shareholders is crucial to channel more capital into female founder teams. In addition, targeted fund initiatives for female founders could help close the financing gap.

“The declining proportion of women in start-ups is not only a problem for gender policy, but also an economic one. We see a much higher proportion of female founders and co-founders in impact entrepreneurship. Learning from this sector can increase innovation, competitiveness and gender equality in Germany” summarizes Jennifer Eschweiler, startup expert at Bertelsmann.

The results of the Female Founders Monitor 2025 indicate that targeted measures in education, family policy and financing are needed to sustainably increase the proportion of female startup founders. The enormous potential of female founders for the German economy can only be fully harvested if these measures are implemented hand in hand.