What do you anticipate to be your company’s biggest commercial, operational, and financial challenges? Past 12 months Next 12 months Securing access to capital Securing new customers Longer sales conversion times Finding product-market fit Repeatable sales processes Managing burn rate Converting customer intros Product-led growth Regulatory requirements Development of AI/ML Increased competition Increasing business costs Existing customer churn Transitioning to M&A Supply chain barriers Transition to public markets 0 10 20 30 40 50 % of respondents Sources: Notes: Founder respondents only. Share of funding going to mixed teams remains unchanged The share of capital investment and rounds raised by women continues to see very slow progress. In 2023, just 7% of rounds raised were captured by all-women founding teams, up just two percentage points over the past 昀椀ve years. Similarly, just 18% of rounds raised this year to date were captured by companies with at least one woman founder or co-founder. This share has increased by only a single percentage point over a 昀椀ve-year period. This means that 75% of all rounds raised this year went to all-men founding teams. In absolute terms, the numbers are even less positive. In 2023, all-women founding teams raised just 3% of all dollars invested in the year, with mixed gender founding teams taking 15%, leaving 82% of dollars to 昀氀ow to founding teams that are all men. This number has increased by a single percentage point since 2019. 95 | Companies