By Sabrina Lynch
- Female entrepreneurs raised $73.2 billion in Q2 2026, but nearly 89 cents of every dollar came from a single AI deal
- Less than 1% of venture capital funding goes to businesses owned by People of Color
Female founders may be breaking down doors when it comes to banking growth capital, but the numbers are telling a more complicated story. On paper, startups with a woman at the helm raised $73.2 billion in the second quarter of 2026, their second best quarterly showing yet. Now, it could be said that a win is a win, but the catch is that almost 89 cents of every dollar came from one deal with AI company Anthropic.
Why This Matters: Co-founded by Daniela Amodei, Anthropic raised $65 billion among 622 other companies, so when you strip away their deal. The other 621 companies managed to raise a combined $8.2 billion, which lessens the impact of female-forward anthems behind VC investments. Clearly, pretty hurts in business.
Female-led companies still make up just 7.2% of new businesses pitching for VCs straight off the bat and although they are securing record-high levels of funding, most of this capital is being channeled through a small number of deals. That leaves even fewer seats at the table and creates another barrier for People of Color to overcome.
Historically Black-founded startups have only received between 0.5% to 1% of venture capital funding, with Hispanic and Latina founders vying for crumbs of under 0.4%. Considering all female founding teams receive an average of just 2.4% of VC funding over a 30-year period, the AI funding boom is not helping move the diversity agenda in the right direction.
Situational Awareness: Venture capitalists and policymakers have yet to agree on guidelines that would prevent megadeals from monopolising the market. When a small number of companies receive the lion’s share of funding, it unfairly pushes out founders from early-stage rounds and creates skewed data that indicates things are fine when they are not. The market works better on diverse portfolios, and inequities of this nature will continue to stop this from happening.
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