Investing in women-led businesses and female founders

It’s well known that women-led businesses receive significantly less funding than businesses founded and run by men. And addressing this gender gap isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s also essential for driving greater innovation and economic growth.

As growth capital investors committed to driving positive change in our industry, we’re proud to be a signatory of the Investing in Women Code. Read on to learn more.

What is the Investing in Women Code?

Established off the back of the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, the Investing in Women Code is a UK government-backed initiative — set up to address barriers preventing female entrepreneurs from accessing capital in the same number as men.

Together, the Investing in Women Code signatories commit to breaking down these barriers, alongside the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and the Investing in Women Code Partners — UK Business Angels Association (UKBAA), British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA), UK Finance, and the British Business Bank.

Banks, private equity firms, angel investors and venture capital funds, and other debt or equity finance providers can sign up to the Investing in Women Code. See the list of signatories here.

In 2024, DBT’s annual Investing in Women Code report found that venture capital fund signatories outperform the equity market year-on-year in supporting female founders. Read more in their annual report here.

Signatories of the Investing in Women Code commit to:

1. Nominating a member of the senior leadership team (or key individual within the angel group or network) to be responsible for supporting equality in all my organisation’s interactions with women entrepreneurs
2. Adopting internal practices that aim to improve female entrepreneurs’ access to the tools, resources and finance they need to grow their businesses, and reviewing these practices annually
3. Providing to an industry body designated by DBT a commonly agreed set of data about the organisation’s investing or lending activities, and about its own staff and leadership team, together with a case study of the organisation’s work with a woman entrepreneur, on the understanding that they will collate this data and provide it to DBT on an aggregated and anonymised basis for publication in an annual report

Interested in becoming a signatory firm? Learn more about the Investing in Women Code and register your interest here.

Backing women-led businesses at BGF

For five years running, we’ve been named the UK’s most active institutional investor in female-founded scaleups, having invested more than £500 million in female teams to date.

By signing the Investing in Women Code, we have committed to promoting female entrepreneurship, increasing transparency in our funding activities, and adopting practices to better support women-led businesses. This aligns with our broader efforts to foster EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) within the UK and Irish investment landscape.

Alongside Coutts, NatWest’s Private Banking arm, we launched the UK Enterprise Fund (UKEF) in 2021 to identify and address equity gaps across the whole of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, with specific initiatives for women-led businesses.

We’ve also committed to investing £25 million into female founders and women-led businesses across the UK via the Invest in Women Taskforce.

Internally, we have a close to 50:50 gender split across our team (47% of BGF employees are female, at the time of writing). And we continue working to ensure this gender balance filters into all areas of the business, including our investment teams – with female investors being more likely than their male counterparts to back female founders.

We also recognise the crucial role of senior women on boards, in inspiring and mentoring female talent, and encouraging female entrepreneurship. This is embedded in our efforts to increase the number of female non-execs on the boards of our portfolio companies. Meanwhile, on our own Board, three out of four of our Non-Executive Directors are female.

Want to learn more about the female business leaders in our portfolio? Watch our interview with female founder and CEO Vikki Jackson-Smith below, to hear how her family-run recycling company exceeded its growth targets with funding and support from BGF:

Discover more from our Stories of Growth interview series here, including Kids Planet’s Chief Executive, Clare Roberts, on how she took her growing nursery care group to the next level with BGF.

The information contained in this article is for general information and use. It does not constitute any form of advice and is not intended to be relied upon in making any investment decision. Independent advice should always be sought as to whether a particular transaction is suitable having regard to your personal and financial circumstances.