Closing the Gap: What Australia Stands to Gain by Backing Female Founders
Insights from The Women’s Agenda “What We Could Solve” Podcast Series
As female founders ourselves – and with the privilege of partnering with many incredible women building, scaling, and bootstrapping their own ventures – we were both energised and concerned listening to the first four episodes of The Women’s Agenda podcast series, “What We Could Solve - Closing the Gap.”
The data speaks loudly. The stories speak louder. And the opportunities? They’re enormous—for women, for investors, and for Australia.
This Nine Yards blog outlines the insights that hit us hardest.
The Problem Behind the Numbers
The gender investment gap is no longer a whisper. It’s a blaring alarm:
Just 2% of private investment went to all-female founding teams last year.
Only 6 of Australia’s 30 most active funds invested more than 50% in women-founded startups.
2025 is tracking to be the lowest year on record for capital raised by all-female teams.
This isn’t a pipeline issue. It’s not a talent issue. And it’s certainly not a performance issue.
It’s a systemic issue, shaped by bias, pattern-matching, and decades of investment norms designed without women in mind.
The Bias Built Into the System
The podcast series highlights some striking but sadly familiar patterns:
Different questions for different founders
Harvard research shows investors tend to ask promotion-oriented questions (“How will you win?”) to men and prevention-oriented questions (“How will you avoid losing?”) to women. Different questions lead to different answers and ultimately, different investment outcomes.A shortage of second-time female founders
Investors love a repeat founder, but structural barriers mean fewer women get to the point of exiting a business. This only reinforces the cycle.A higher burden of proof
Women and people from culturally diverse backgrounds face tougher scrutiny, greater scepticism, and a narrower margin for error from investors.Many female founders are still working full-time jobs
When women are forced to hold down paid employment while building a startup, it limits speed, risk-taking, and the narrative of “going all in” that VCs often reward.Impact-led businesses (disproportionately founded by women) are undervalued
Impact is often dismissed as “nice-to-have,” even though it’s where some of the most urgent opportunities exist: health, education, and climate.
And yet… the data shows the opposite story
Women-founded companies:
Are more capital-efficient
Deliver higher revenue relative to investment
Outperform the market: all-female teams by ~1% and mixed-gender teams by ~10%
Represent a $71–145 billion economic opportunity if we simply increased their numbers to parity (BCG)
It begs the question: Can we really afford not to back female-founded businesses?
What Australia Is Missing Out On
This isn’t just a diversity issue. It’s an opportunity issue.
When female founders are underfunded, Australia misses out on advancements in:
Healthcare
Education
Climate solutions
Human-centred AI development (currently shaped largely by male-dominant perspectives)
And research shows that women in leadership hire, promote, and invest in other women – creating the multiplier effect our ecosystem desperately needs.
Where Change Must Start: The Investors
Venture capitalists are the gatekeepers of capital, and their influence shapes which problems get solved and by whom.
The podcast puts forward some clear actions VCs can take:
Put the burden back on the investor, not the founder
It’s not about “fixing” women’s pitch styles. It’s about shifting investor bias, processes, and patterns.Be transparent
In their processes. In their terms. And critically, in their feedback.Introduce quotas
Setting targets for female and mixed-gender founding teams is both a fairness strategy and a statistically smart financial strategy.Broaden the investment lens
Diversify investment teams across gender and culture. It changes the founders you meet, the questions you ask, and the businesses you believe in.
The Role of Limited Partners (Including Super Funds)
LPs can accelerate change by:
Setting conditions for diversity in the funding they allocate
Requiring measurable outcomes
Encouraging funds to invest in the full spectrum of founders
This isn’t charity. LPs stand to gain stronger and more resilient long-term returns.
Meanwhile, Many Women Are Saying: “I’ll Do It Myself.”
A powerful theme in the series is the rise of bootstrapping.
Many women are:
Building businesses on their own terms
Growing more sustainably
Creating significant wealth without VC backing
Designing companies that are values-led, strategic, and customer-centric
And it’s working.
This alone should signal to investors that they’re missing out - not the other way round.
We should celebrate these founders. And we should stop positioning bootstrapping as a second-choice path.
The Power of Opportunity-Making
Pitch competitions, accelerator programs, and curated opportunities can be transformative, but only when they are:
High-quality
Not extractive
Focused on access and acceleration
Not designed as “female founder only” consolation prizes
Not pitting women against each other
The future lies in programs that open doors without creating new ceilings.
So, What Could We Solve?
When we close the gender investment gap, we’re not just supporting women.
We’re unlocking:
A stronger, more competitive national economy
A richer innovation ecosystem
Better solutions in health, education, sustainability, and AI
Generational wealth creation
More equitable leadership pathways
An investment landscape that represents the Australia we actually live in
This is not a niche issue. It’s a national opportunity.
And we’re only beginning to understand its scale.
This reflection is based on the first four episodes of the Women’s Agenda “What We Could Solve – Closing the Gap” series. With two more episodes still to come, we’re genuinely excited to see what additional insights and solutions emerge, and how they might further shape the future of Australia’s startup landscape. We’ll be listening closely!
