Insights for Female Founders in ESG from a Seasoned Venture Capitalist

If you’re a female founder, you get a lot of advice about how to pitch to venture capital funds and individual investors. I even saw one called “How Not To Suck At Pitching Your Startup!” But that advice is usually coming from white men and let’s just say their experience is very likely going to be very different than a female founder (or anyone else who isn’t a white male).

In 2025 so far, 2.3% of venture capital funding went to companies founded by women. That’s not a typo; it’s 2.3%. That means 97.7% of the funding went to men. Even mixed gender teams, that’s companies founded by both men and women, got a whopping 14.1%. In dollars, that means female founder teams only got $6.7 billion, but 100% male teams got, wait for it, $242 billion. These statistics are courtesy of the Founders Forum Group.

Part of the problem is that women are still very under-represented on venture capital fund teams. In 2025 so far, only 15.4% of VC firm teams are women, and only 5.7% of the firms are founded by women. That’s progress, but it’s very, very slow.

Therefore, there’s an 84.6% chance that the people you’re pitching to will be all male, and a 97.7% chance that they will not be investing in your company.

What is venture capital anyway?

Cecile Bililious

successfulwomenofisrael.com

According to Cecile Blilious, a veteran venture capitalist and co-founder of Venture ESG, “Venture capital is a way to deploy capital that is high risk, high return, and invest mostly in tech companies in different stages, different domains, different geographies, and basically is trying to maximize profits.” Venture ESG is a nonprofit organization offering a suite of training, tools, events and research for venture capitalists on integrating ESG across the VC value chain.

She said VC funds are locked in “usually from seven to 10 to sometimes 13 and more years,” because innovation takes time. You have to be an accredited investor to be in venture capital.

AngelList, a popular platform connecting startups with potential investors, says: “Venture capital funds are pooled investment vehicles that provide capital to startups in exchange for equity.”