Funding for female-founded start-ups reaches new record

Data from a new TechIreland report shows that funding into women-led start-ups reached a historic new high last year.

Despite the macroeconomic challenges and a general cooling of investments into start-ups globally, female founders on the island managed to raise €234 million, another record for the third consecutive year, just pipping the €230 million raised in 2021. Not only is this the highest funding, it was also a record number of companies with 72 women-led start-ups.

It is heartening to see that female founders have kept their record streak going, and for the first time they have outperformed the overall startup population. While overall funding for startups in Ireland dropped, women-led startups have bucked the trend. Enterprise Ireland, NDRC, HBAN, Spark Crowdfunding, and angel investors deserve credit for this pleasant anomaly.

 Like previous years, the top three outliers make up 66% of the total (€66 million by TransferMate Global Payments, €58 million by Carrick Therapeutics and €30 million by Proverum). Another large outlier was &Open which raised €26 million last year. The other 68 companies raised €58 million between them.

Early-stage rounds between €100,000 and €300,000 increased dramatically to 36 last year, partly due to Enterprise Ireland increasing their early stage pre Seed round to €100,000. There were also some smaller bridge rounds into previously seeded startups.
 
In terms of sectors, HealthTech continues to top the table with 22 companies raising a total €106 million, followed by Enterprise Solutions – €43 million into 16 companies. eCommerce was a significant winner – from just one the previous year to 11 companies last year. One sector that fared poorly, despite a lot of push, was cleantech and sustainability, which attracted less than €2 million last year.
 
In terms of the regional spread, 60% of the funding went to regions outside Dublin, aided by TransferMate (Kilkenny) and Carrick Therapeutics (Galway). However, it is encouraging that half of all women-led startups funded last year were in the regions.

Northern Ireland based startups raised €4 million which is small in proportion to the island total.

Last year also saw a more diverse mix of investors funding female founders, with at least 40 domestic and international investors, which underlines the confidence in women entrepreneurship on the island.

Responding to the report, chief executive of TechIreland, John O’Dea: “When we reported the record €230 million in 2021, we thought it was an outlier. But women-led start-ups are pushing the bar higher each year, thanks to early stage backing from Enterprise Ireland and our investor community. We should continue to build on these strengths.’’ 

Reporting: Tech Central