APAC Support for Female Start-ups: Funding Status
According to the CIO, female-founded start-ups are facing an uphill battle. A Pitchbook report shows that in 2024, female founders only received 1.9% of total investments. It’s lower than 2023’s 2.0%. There are also fewer deals. 2023 4Q had a total of 796, while 2024 4Q only had 628. Let’s see how the APAC support for female start-ups is faring.
In Carta’s data, APAC’s volume of female founders in 2024 (14.3%) is lower than in 2023 (14.5%). Despite this, in the past two decades, there has still been a significant growth of 114% in female-owned and led businesses. This is a positive sign.
To encourage more business founders, we gathered insights from Crunchbase and Pitchbook. Here are 7 APAC VCs with APAC support for female founders.
7 VCs Supporting APAC Female Founders
IWEF
- Headquarters: Indonesia
- Investment Location: Indonesia, Southeast Asia (SEA)
- Investment Stage: Early Stage Venture
- Start-ups/s Invested: Binar Academy, Farmacare, Shoplinks
- Closed Deals/Investments: 7
She Loves Tech
- Headquarters: China
- Investment Location: Global
- Investment Stage: Early Stage Venture, Grant, Seed
- Start-ups/s Invested: Rayo
- Closed Deals/Investments: 6
Scale Investors
- Headquarters: Australia
- Investment Location: Australia
- Investment Stage: Pre-seed, Seed
- Start-up/s Invested: Clean Slate Clinic, Graphics et al., Beamible
- Closed Deals/Investments: 52
StrongHer Ventures
- Headquarters: India
- Investment Location: India, Southeast Asia
- Investment Stage: Early Stage Venture, Seed
- Start-up/s Invested: Meolaa, Ready Set Jet, Assidus
- Closed Deals/Investments: 11
Cocoon Capital
- Headquarters: Singapore
- Investment Location: Southeast Asia
- Investment Stage: Early Stage Venture, Seed
- Start-up/s Invested: TransTrack, Apirisium, ArrowBiome
- Closed Deals/Investments: 26
Angels of Impact
- Headquarters: Singapore
- Investment Location: Southeast Asia
- Investment Stage: Early Stage Ventures
- Closed Deals/Investments: 39
Vertex Ventures
- Headquarters: Singapore
- Investment Location: Southeast Asia, India, China
- Investment Stage: Early Stage Venture, Late Stage Venture, Post-Ipo, Seed, Venture
- Start-up/s Invested: Evinced, Hyperbolic, Trustero
- Closed Deals/Investments: 290
Future Opportunities
Whilst the data points to a tough landscape, the APAC support for female start-ups is improving. VC investments continue, and start-up grants are offered, along with exciting conferences and opportunities for networking.
These initiatives are slowly inspiring more women in tech to create their start-ups and encourage investors to invest more in female-founded enterprises. Hopefully, we’ll reach gender parity earlier than the estimated 131 years (Women Tech Network).
If you have something to share, get it out there. Don’t let the present data deter you from building your start-up or seeking investors. Who knows, yours may be one of the next top-funded start-ups in APAC – or the world.
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