30% of European impact VCs have a female founding partner – six times the industry average

Nearly 30% (29.7%) of European impact-focused venture capital firms have at least one female founding partner – roughly six times the global average, according to analysis of more than 200 firms by Impact Loop.

Those with at least one female partner include Pale Blue Dot, Planet A Ventures, Daphni, Future Energy Ventures, and World Fund. More than a dozen firms boast all-female founding teams, such as Blume Equity, Course Corrected, Crowberry Capital, and Rubio Impact Ventures.

Europe’s impact-focused funds also outperform traditional VCs when it comes to female leadership: 70.8% have at least one female general partner, compared with roughly 20% across the broader industry (other figures report even lower rates of around 15%).

'Better positioning'

Shayan Roy Chowdhury, managing director at Newton Venture Program, which was not involved in the study, said he believed the results indicate that impact VCs in particular were doing more to attract female investors.

"There’s no dearth of talented female professionals looking to enter VC," he tells Impact Loop. "Impact funds have simply positioned themselves better in terms of opening up opportunities to that pool of talent."

Newton Venture Program is a UK-based venture capital training programme, born from a partnership between London Business School and VC firm Phoenix Court (part of LocalGlobe). It helps people from underrepresented backgrounds enter the world of venture. Half of the programme’s 3000+ alumni are women.

Chowdhury says he thinks that by building diverse firms, impact VCs will also be better positioned to spot and attract innovative startups.

"By leading the way with hiring practices that genuinely build diverse teams, these funds will also stay ahead of the curve when it comes to spotting founder potential," he says.

Positive momentum

High female representation in VC often causes a snowball effect: one recent study by Theanna found female partners were 2.3x more likely to invest in female founders than their male counterparts.

"When overlooked groups are involved in investment decision-making at a senior level, there is a broadening of access to the capital pool in a way that better reflects society,” says Chowdhury. "More exceptional founders get a seat at the table, which is a win for everyone."

In our analysis, several VCs, including Ada Ventures and Unconventional Ventures, don't just have diverse teams but explicitly target underrepresented founders in their investments.

"The very best founders, the best talent can come from every background, in every community," Ada Ventures’ founding partner Check Warner previously told Impact Loop. "The question is whether they get a seat at the table."

It’s a sentiment echoed by others in the VC industry. Torsten Kolind, partner at Underground Ventures, says he thinks firms are diminishing their returns by not backing diverse founders and teams.

"Invest in founders and fund managers who look like the future [you want to build]," Kolind recently wrote in an opinion piece published in Impact Loop.

Still a long way to go

Despite marginal gains in gender diversity, the VC industry remains overwhelmingly male, even in the impact sector. It’s also an issue research shows has knock-on effects not just on productivity at the firm-level, but also on the startups that get funded.

A report from the Founders Forum Group this year found that of the $289 billion in VC money invested globally in 2024, just 2.3% went to female-only founding teams ($6.7 billion). Just over 14% went to mixed-gender founding teams, while all-male teams took the lion’s share at 83.6%.

Nevertheless, impact VCs in Europe show promising signs of growth that might offer a blueprint for the broader industry to follow.

Methodology:

This analysis was based on a dataset of 212 European impact VCs drawn from Impact Loop’s database. “Impact” in this context refers to funds investing in climate, food, social innovation, and deep tech, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We compiled data from publicly available sources, including firm websites, LinkedIn profiles, and other databases, and benchmarked our findings against existing industry statistics from Founders Forum Group.