Bridging the Gap for Women of Color Founders The Opportunity

As highlighted before, a disproportionately small share of venture capital funding is allocated to women of color founders, which was especially evident in 2022. Only 1.9% of the total funding that year was directed toward female founders, representing the lowest proportion since 2016 (after reaching a peak of 3.4% in 2019).

To illustrate the opportunity, we’ll use data from a report by American Express, which states that in 2019, there were 6.4 million women of color-owned businesses in the U.S. This represents ~21% of the 30.8 million businesses open at that time. Applying that 21% to the $288.3 billion of venture capital dollars invested in 2022, we believe there is an illustrative opportunity to deploy at least $60B to women of color-led companies. While this illustration is not perfect, we hope that it demonstrates the gap between women of color-led companies and the dollars allocated to these companies.