Women-Led Start-ups See Funding Share Rise, but Challenges Persist in 2026

Women-led start-ups have seen their share of African start-up funding increase in the first nine months of 2026.

However, the improvement largely reflects a single large funding round rather than a broader recovery in access to capital.

According to a recent report by Africa: The Big Deal, between January and September 2026, start-ups with a woman CEO raised $115 million, accounting for 5.4% of total funding. This represents a significant increase from the 2.7% share recorded during the same period in 2025 and marks the highest level since 2023.

However, the figures present a different picture when examined more closely. A substantial portion of the funding came from Odyssey Energy Solutions, a company led by a woman, which raised $74 million in September.

The funding consists of a $27 million equity round and $47 million in debt. The financing will support continued expansion of Odyssey's platform, which connects more than 6,000 solar installers and engineering, procurement, and construction companies (EPCs) with financiers and equipment suppliers in more than 50 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, facilitating access to $3.6 billion in capital for distributed energy projects.

Without this transaction, women-led start-ups would have accounted for approximately 2% of total funding, highlighting the extent to which a single deal influenced the overall figures.

The number of women-led start-ups securing funding also points to persistent challenges. Only 46 start-ups with a woman CEO raised at least $100,000 between January and September 2026, compared with 64 during the same period in 2025. The 28% decline represents the lowest figure since 2021.

The number of companies raising at least $1 million also fell, dropping to 10 from 13 a year earlier. The figures suggest that women-led businesses continue to face difficulties securing capital, particularly as early-stage start-ups encounter tighter funding conditions.

A broader assessment of start-ups with at least one woman co-founder reveals a similar imbalance between the number of businesses raising capital and the amount of funding they receive.

These companies accounted for 28% of all start-ups that raised at least $100,000 during the first nine months of 2026, representing 86 businesses. Their share of funded start-ups has remained relatively stable, ranging between 25% and 32% since 2021.

However, their share of total funding stood at just 8.9%, a marginal improvement from 8.5% in 2025 but significantly below the 22% recorded in the first nine months of 2021.

The difference is also reflected in deal sizes. Start-ups with at least one woman co-founder recorded a median funding round of $240,000, less than a third of the $750,000 median for start-ups with at least one man co-founder.

Businesses with exclusively female founding teams faced even greater constraints, raising a combined $16 million, representing less than 1% of total funding during the period.

The funding disparity highlights how the concentration of investment in larger transactions can disadvantage women-led businesses.

As investors direct more capital towards fewer, larger funding rounds, smaller companies, which typically depend on modest early-stage investments, face increasing difficulty securing the resources needed to grow.

Women-led start-ups are particularly exposed to this trend because their funding rounds tend to be smaller on average. Consequently, a decline in the availability of smaller investments can disproportionately affect their ability to attract capital.

The pattern was already evident in the first quarter of 2026, and the figures for the first nine months suggest that little has changed.

Notably, the funding gap in women startups reflects a combination of investor bias, limited access to investment networks, differences in business representation across sectors, and structural challenges that affect how female entrepreneurs build and scale their businesses.

Investor bias remains one of the major factors behind the disparity. Venture capital investment decisions are often influenced by investors' perceptions of an entrepreneur's ability to scale a business, generate returns, and compete in large markets.

In predominantly male investment networks, these perceptions can disadvantage female founders, particularly when investors rely on familiar professional relationships, personal connections, or assumptions about who is best positioned to lead a high-growth company.

Such biases can influence which businesses receive meetings, advance through due diligence, and ultimately secure funding.

Although the overall funding share for women-led businesses has improved, the underlying numbers indicate that access to capital remains uneven, with a small number of large transactions masking broader challenges across the ecosystem.

Outlook

Looking ahead, the funding outlook for women-led start-ups in Africa will depend largely on how venture capital investment evolves, particularly the availability of early-stage financing and the distribution of capital across sectors and businesses.

If funding continues to concentrate around a small number of large transactions, women-led start-ups could struggle to improve their overall share of investment despite an increase in headline funding figures. The decline in the number of female-led businesses raising at least $100,000 suggests that the challenge extends beyond the amount of capital available to individual companies to the number of entrepreneurs able to access it.

However, a recovery in early-stage investment could create opportunities for more women-led businesses to secure the capital required to develop products, expand operations, and attract subsequent funding rounds.