45% of Female Founders Say Funding Access is "Primary Obstacle"

One of the most comprehensive surveys of female entrepreneurial voices has revealed that funding access is a “primary obstacle” for women seeking to grow their businesses.

The research – called the Rise Report – was carried out by Female Founders Rise, which is a B Corp community of 11,000 women from across the country. It asked them 19 questions and has delivered what the organisation’s founder, Emmie Faust, says is “coalface data”.

It reveals that, despite progress – to which the female founders among our Startups 100 winners are testament – much more needs to be done to help more turn ideas into sustainable businesses.

For women, securing funding is fraught with difficulty

When the team behind the Rise Report delved into the particulars of female founders’ funding bids, they shared overwhelmingly negative experiences. 78% of the 2,000 women surveyed said that their bidding experience had been problematic, using terms like opaque, bureaucratic and time-consuming.

A similarly high percentage of respondents (73%) described the process of fighting for private finance as negative.

They said that their interactions with VCs and angels had been fraught with bias, experiences of ghosting and often showed “misalignment with caregiving realities”.

In total, 45% of Rise’s survey respondents identified capital access as the primary barrier to getting their business off the ground.

In recent times, there have been calls for a rehaul of the funding system for all founders. There is growing political will for banks to be held accountable for how they are supporting SMEs, for example. However, the Rise report suggests there is a significant, gender-based conversation worth having about funding acquisition, too.

According to the British Business Bank, only 2% of venture capital funding goes to fully-female-founded businesses.

Considering the barriers to funding in play, it is perhaps unsurprising that period tracking app Flo Health – the first women’s health app to achieve unicorn status – was founded, led and funded by men.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been meteoric successes in women’s health by female-led ventures – the Startups 100’s 2026 Exceptional Founder, Karolina Löfqvist of Hormona, is among them.

But that small percentage of VC funding won’t go far enough for the nation’s female entrepreneurs, who are currently founding around one-fifth of all new companies every year.

The power of community

With a tough funding landscape to negotiate, the Rise report revealed that 39% of founders are turning to peer and founder networks to help them through. This was named as the most helpful tool in their journey with family and close personal support, a way behind at 13%.

Mentorship and coaching also got a large tick, with 32% of respondents saying that it has helped them as they try to grow their venture.

As is reflected in the wider founder community, organisations – whether financial or governmental – play a less significant role in this process. Financial support and investment accrued was selected by just 11% of respondents, accelerators and incubators by just 8%.

With 78% of respondents citing connection as central to their journey and one in seven reporting loneliness and isolation as their biggest challenge, it seems the female founders are actively looking to people who will understand their challenges.

As the survey revealed, 20% want more mentorship and coaching, and 22% put networking and community building at the top of their wish list.

A call to move faster

Faust says that the research should drive change. She acknowledges that “…some structural issues will continue to take time to evolve”, but she – and the other founders quoted in the report – say there needs to be acceleration.

“From strengthening peer networks and mentorship, to improving access to expertise and simplifying pathways to funding, there are real opportunities for the ecosystem to move faster together,” she writes.

This is far from the first report to put forward a plan for driving female entrepreneurship. The Rise team nods to the Government’s Women and Equalities Committee (WEC), which submitted a report in October 2025. It said that the present landscape has resulted in £310 billion of unrealised economic growth for the UK economy.

It recommended a rehaul of the access to finance, networks and support for female entrepreneurs, but also a hard look into the caregiving and maternity systems that are preventing women from being able to innovate.

This latest report adds to the voices calling for change and pointing to the untapped potential.

As Faust writes: “It reflects a community that is already driving innovation and economic growth, and it shows what becomes possible when that energy is fully supported.”