![Is There a Gender-Based Funding Gap in Web3? Female Founders Received Only 7% of VC Funding in Two Years](http://media.assettype.com/voiceofcrypto%2Fimport%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F01%2Fwebsite-16-jan-86_11zon.jpg?w=480&auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max)
Gender gaps have always been an issue in several crypto niches, and Web3.0 is no exception.
Male-led startups and companies have been shown severally to receive way more funding and attention than female-led ones. This issue has caused endless disagreements between both sides, that persist even to date.
However, while these issues have constantly been swept under the rug due to insufficient proof over the years, there might now be a boatload of data, too big to bury.
According to a report by Bitget Research, Web3.0 startups collected a jaw-dropping $27.85 billion in VC funding from Q1 2022 to Q3 2023.
Disappointingly, a lot less than 10% of this money went to female-led startups.
Bitget's report shows without a doubt, that not everyone is benefiting equally from the boom in web3.
As we mentioned earlier, Bitget Research's report shows that a whopping $27.85 billion in VC funding was collected from VC investors by web3 startups.
However, the same report also shows that only 6.43% of this money went to startups founded or run by women.
For a little more perspective, this means that only about $1.77 billion went to the women, while the male-led startups received an insane $26.08 billion, or 93.57%, of the total.
To clarify, this report also shows that the so-called "female-led Web3 startups" (which refers to startups with at least 50% female executives) accounted for just under 9% of all startup firms in the sector.
However, this is no excuse, because Bitget's report says that the gender gap in Web 3.0 VC funding was not only persistent but also widening over time.
"The share of female-led blockchain startups shows an upward trend, but the moment of reaching equilibrium with male-led ones is far distant", Bitget says
Data from TechCrunch also shows that this trend is international, and not focused on Web 3.0 alone.
This is because out of the $238.3 billion in venture financing awarded to US firms in 2018, just around 1.9%, or around $4.5 billion, went to teams comprised entirely of women.
The 2022 number turned out to be even lower than the 2.4% from 2021.
Overall, the report from Bitget highlighted the need to develop lasting solutions to close the gender gap in web3 VC funding.
Bitget notes that the possible causes for this gender gap in the Web3 ecosystem may be due to several factors:
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