Sources.

PitchBook's 2025 edition (released March 5, 2026) shows the headline doubling of capital to companies with at least one female founder is concentrated in a small number of AI megadeals tied to already-prominent founders.

Fortune's analysis of the PitchBook 2025 All In report deconstructs the record headline, showing that broad-based access to capital for female founders did not improve in 2025.

The Q1 2026 Venture Monitor (data as of March 31, 2026), released April 30, 2026 — primary source for the Q1 2026 collapse to 0.6%. Direct PDF.

PitchBook's annual benchmark on women in the US venture ecosystem. The 2024 edition documents that companies founded solely by women captured only ~1% of US VC capital, the lowest level in seven years.

PitchBook's 2023 edition of the All In report — the historical comparison point for the 2024 collapse to 1% and the Q1 2026 fall to 0.6%.

Inc.'s coverage of the 2024 PitchBook All In report, summarizing the 1% headline and what it means for the broader US venture market.

TechCrunch analysis of 2024 data showing parallel declines for male- and female-led startups, with women-led teams outperforming in deep tech subsectors.

Tracxn's global benchmark on women-led tech funding in 2024, including geographic breakdowns and unicorn formation data.

BCG and MassChallenge analyzed five years of data and found women-founded businesses returned more than twice as much per investment dollar despite raising significantly less capital.

First Round's decade-in-review study of its own portfolio found that startups with a woman on the founding team materially outperformed all-male peers across a 10-year window.

Kauffman Fellows' analysis of thousands of startups found gender-diverse founding teams produced significantly higher exit multiples and more downstream innovation.

IFC, Oliver Wyman, and RockCreek analyzed 700+ funds and found that gender-balanced leadership teams delivered measurably higher returns than male- or female-dominated teams.

McKinsey's longitudinal study across 1,000+ large companies in 15 countries shows the financial performance gap between diverse and non-diverse companies has widened over time.

The flagship annual benchmark on US women-owned businesses, with employment, revenue, and growth data sourced from US Census Bureau microdata.

The SBA Office of Advocacy's 2024 infographic and dataset on women-owned business ownership, employment, and industry distribution, drawn from the most recent Census data.

The SBA documents the post-pandemic surge in women's entrepreneurship and the persistent gap between women's share of business ownership and the capital available to them.

Analysis of 1.3 million small businesses in the JPMorgan Chase administrative dataset, isolating gender effects on revenue, profit margins, and survival.

Two decades of Diana Project research documenting the structural mismatch between women's participation in business ownership and their access to formal venture funding.

Field study of TechCrunch Disrupt Q&A sessions found systematic differences in how investors question male vs. female founders, directly correlating with capital raised.

The peer-reviewed academic paper underlying the HBR piece, formalizing the regulatory-focus mechanism and quantifying its impact on funding outcomes.

Published in the Journal of Financial Economics, this study traces causal links between gender diversity at VC firms and improved deal performance.

All Raise's ongoing dashboard tracks the share of female checkwriters at US tech VC firms — the people actually deciding which founders get funded.

All Raise's 2024 annual report compiles ecosystem-wide data on women and nonbinary investors and founders and the structural levers that move the numbers.