The Hidden Capital Crisis
Why Australia’s Women-Led Businesses Are Starved of Growth
The Numbers That Should Stop Us in Our Tracks
In Q2 2025, Women's Agenda reported that women-only founding teams in Australia raised less than 0.5% of total startup funding. Not 5%. Not even 1%. Half a percent.
Globally, of the $289 billion in venture capital deployed in 2024, only 2.3% went to female-only teams ($6.7B). Meanwhile, 83.6% went to all-male teams ($241.9B) [2]. Meanwhile, in Australia, female founders received just 2% of venture funding in 2024 [1].
This isn’t a women’s issue. It’s a capital allocation failure.
When Innovation Is Left Unfunded
Yes, 34% of Australian SMEs are women-owned [3]. These enterprises — spanning retail, services, and lifestyle — are vital. They employ people, support communities, and strengthen the social fabric of our economy.
But when women step into the highest-value arenas of innovation, the picture changes. We’re talking about companies in:
Technology & AI – software, platforms, and automation shaping the digital economy.
Health & Medtech – life sciences, digital health, and biotechnology transforming patient care and outcomes.
Climate & Sustainability – clean energy, circular economy, and regenerative solutions critical to our environmental future.
Education & Workforce – platforms and tools preparing the next generation of skills for a knowledge economy.
B2B Innovation – enterprise SaaS, data, and infrastructure solutions that scale globally.
Deeptech & Advanced Industries – robotics, quantum, space, and frontier science with long-term economic upside.
Impact Ventures – businesses solving systemic social or environmental challenges while delivering returns.
These are the companies that not only contribute to society, but also have the potential to drive outsized GDP growth, global competitiveness, and long-term resilience. And yet, it is here, in these transformative categories, where women founders are most systemically locked out of the capital flows that fuel scale.
This is Vested Impact’s thesis: we exist to invest in women building the future economy with high-impact, high-value ventures that generate both economic and social returns.
The Innovation Hemorrhage
The consequences are stark:
Missed Unicorns – For every Canva (co-founded by Melanie Perkins), dozens of women-led tech ventures stall for lack of capital.
Lost GDP Growth – Women-led startups generate 10%+ higher revenue per dollar invested [4].
Lower Profitability – Firms with diverse leadership deliver 15–35% stronger returns [5].
By underfunding women-led innovation, we are bleeding out competitive advantage.
Band-Aids on a Structural Wound
Government initiatives exist. From the Boosting Female Founders Initiative (up to $480K grants) [6] to South Australia’s matched funding programs. But these are small patches on a deep structural wound. The capital gap is measured in hundreds of millions, not tens of millions.
One bright spot is the Alice Anderson Fund, which turned every government dollar into four dollars of capital, unlocking nearly $40M for women founders by 2024 [7]. But that scale is still a fraction of what’s needed.
A Call to Economic Rationality
This isn’t about tokenism or optics. We know women-led startups outperform. We know women are building in the sectors critical to Australia’s economic future. Yet we continue to fund in ways that are economically irrational.
Australia is running its innovation economy with one hand tied behind its back.
“We’re re-engineering capital to unlock wealth that already exists — and putting it to work where it generates the highest economic and social return. Equity, reimagined.” — Sinéad Fitzgerald, Founder, Vested Impact
The Long Game
At Vested Impact, our ambition is to build a future where women know that if they step into high-growth, high-impact ventures — AI, health, climate, education, B2B, deeptech, and sustainability — they won’t face a starvation economy.
Instead, they will find an ecosystem ready to back them: investors, partners, and equity holders committed to re-engineering capital flows.
That is how we change the system. That is how we grow. And that is how we unlock the innovation economy Australia deserves.
What Comes Next
This is Part One of a three-part series:
The Builders We’re Ignoring – why women innovators are starved of growth capital.
The Wealth We’re Sitting On – how dormant equity could unlock billions for innovation.
The Future We’re Building – how Vested Impact is creating a new asset class: Equity-to-Impact Capital.
👉 Follow Vested Impact to read Part Two: The Wealth We’re Sitting On.
References
Cut Through Venture & Folklore Ventures (2024). State of Australian Startup Funding Report.
PitchBook (2024). Venture Capital Data Reports.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2023). Business Characteristics Survey.
Boston Consulting Group (2018). Why Women-Owned Startups Are a Better Bet.
McKinsey & Company (2020). Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters.
Australian Government (2025). Boosting Female Founders Initiative.
Invest Victoria (2023). Alice Anderson Fund boosts women-led startups.