The Invest in Women Taskforce has successfully secured over £255 million for a ‘Women Backing Women Fund’ from prominent investors, including British Business Bank, BGF, Visa, M&G Barclays, Morgan Stanley, and Aviva, to support female entrepreneurs raising venture capital (VC) funds.
Established to increase investment in female-led businesses and improve their access to funding, the Taskforce announced the £255 million fund on Monday at an event held at Mansion House, London. The capital will be allocated through a fund of funds programme, and be deployed through women led funds.
Barclays, M&G, British Business Bank, and Aviva have each pledged £50 million. BGF and Morgan Stanley have contributed £25 million, while the Visa Foundation has added £5 million to the fund.
This initiative follows data from the Taskforce highlighting that all-female-founded businesses secured only 1.8% (£145 million) of equity investment in the first half of 2024, a decline from 2.5% in 2023.
Celebrating female founder funding
This is incredible news for high growth female founded companies who typically struggle with funding at the highgrowth and established stage. This was the founding reason that The Lifted Project, led by Zandra Moore and Lifted Ventures was created – to use regional data and ecosystems to create place based actions which will increase the flow of capital to women leading high-growth businesses.
We are waiting for more news on the full deployment of the funds and are obviously keen to understand the potential to support founders across the whole of the UK as 55% of high growth women led businesses are based outside of London.
Further news on angel funding to come
Alongside this funding, it was announced at the launch event yesterday that there will be further news to come around angel investing later this year and we look forward to hearing more from the Invest in Women Taskforce given the vital role which women angels play in supporting women led business and providing the pipeline for the next stage of investment from VCs.
Become an angel for change
Visit our angel page to learn more about how you can make a difference in the VC ecosystem and ensure female-led businesses nationwide have the support they need to soar.