In 2018, Wisconsin startups founded solely by women raised roughly $2 million in venture capital investments, while companies co-founded by women raised $31.5 million, according to data from Pitchbook, a Seattle company that tracks private equity and venture capital activity.
For perspective, Wisconsin startups raised more than $250 million in venture capital investments in 2018.
In the Milwaukee metro specifically, over the past two years, including the first quarter of 2019, female founders raised $3.63 million in venture capital through five deals. In 2016, female-founded startups in the Milwaukee metro netted zero venture capital dollars.
In Madison, activity by companies founded by women was far less over the years when compared with Milwaukee, the data report shows. Since 2016, there were two deals completed by female-only companies, both in 2016, which raised a total of $5.3 million.
Nationally, startups with all female founders received $2.9 billion in venture capital investments in 2018, which represented 2.3 percent of all venture dollars invested in the U.S. in 2018, down from 2.7 percent in 2017. Female-founded companies did, however, own 6 percent of all VC deals in 2018, a 10-year high. Read the full story here.
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