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Funding into women-founded start-ups fell to €93m last year, down from a record €234m in 2022 and the lowest figure since 2019.
A record number of start-ups founded by women managed to raise funding last year, but the overall level of funding dropped significantly.
That’s according to a new report from TechIreland, which revealed that 77 Irish women-founded start-ups successfully fundraised last year, up from 72 in 2022. Despite this growth, the overall level of funding dropped by roughly 60pc during the same period.
The total amount raised by women-founded start-ups fell to €93m last year, down from a record €234m raised the previous year. This is also the lowest level of annual funding seen since 2019. The TechIreland report attributes this drop to the global decline in start-up funding and the macroeconomic headwinds Irish tech companies are facing.
The average deal size for women-led start-ups decreased by 50pc last year, which is consistent with the drop in average funding overall for start-ups in Ireland, according to the report. But the report also suggests that women founders raised an average of €1.2m last year, while the average was €2.3m for start-ups overall.
However, there are still positive aspects to the report, which found that jobs in tech start-ups with women founders appear stable despite global economic headwinds. The TechIreland report said these start-ups employ more than 8,000 skilled people in Ireland.
The report also compared the funding of women founders in Ireland with other European countries and found that – in per capita terms – Ireland gets the top spot for the number of deals reported by women-founded start-ups.
Ireland also ranked in the top 10 European countries for total investments raise, with the UK, Germany and France taking the top three spots.
“While it’s encouraging to see Ireland rank among the top European countries, there is a sharp drop in total funding,” said TechIreland CEO John O’Dea. “Global start-up funding slowed last year and we are not immune to such macroeconomic headwinds, but that said, there is clearly more work to be done to support our female founders.”
The overall drop in funding among women-founded start-ups appears to be caused by a drop in the number of large rounds above €10m. In 2023 there were only two such large outliers, which were Tipperary-based Shorla Oncology raising €31m and Dublin’s ProVerum Medical raising €15m.
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