In the male-dominated landscape of game startups, women were only 0.11 percent of the game VC deal value in 2024, worse when compared to 0.18% in 2023, according to a report by PitchBook.
Women have always had low representation among the funded technology startups. But it’s far worse in the game industry in terms of female representation among funded startups. I’ll tell you more about the numbers and then talk about the reactions from female founders and women VCs.
Female founders in game companies raised an estimated $215.7 million in deals in 2024, up from $163.2 million in deal value in 2023. And female founders were 0.26% of total deal count for game startups in 2024, compared to 0.56% in 2023.
“It’s no shock that there are so few female founders in gaming successfully raising venture capital—there just aren’t that many to begin with. Many founders come from executive roles at major gaming companies, which has historically been overwhelmingly male (about 85% in a 2020 study),” said Amy Wu, a partner at Menlo Ventures, in a message to GamesBeat.
This topic is getting more attention. Lots of women recently participated in a “2%” campaign where they pointed out that women founders only received 2% of venture capital funding. Shelby Moledina, a longtime game developer, recently made a satirical film, Resting Pitch Face, about how tough it is for women to raise venture capital for a startup. She showed it at our recent GamesBeat Next 2024 event and got a strong reaction.
But there’s a downside, as the Trump administration is working to make diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) illegal in various settings in the government, and that could have a chilling effect on efforts to raise more money for women-led companies.
There’s also signs of bias in terms of the kinds of questions women get asked when raising money, in comparison to the questions men get asked.
Charmaine Duff, head of Women-Led Games, said in a message to GamesBeat, “I think at this point in history when the climate for games is so tumultuous, DEI is being dismantled, and women already deal with so much adversity, we will only see investment towards women only founded teams get worse.”
Duff said she wished she could be optimistic.
“But this is what I’m telling women who are starting indie studios after being laid off,” Duff said. “You see it already with large AAA studios backing away and laying off DEI teams. I also see a lot of people who were excited to sponsor things like WLG or LAGS or any other diverse showcase or initiative backing away from supporting. There’s a lot of uncertainty and fear and the first teams that will be affected will be ones led by women and people of color.”
Tina Merry, cofounder at Simply Sweet Games, said in a message, “This article highlights a persistent funding gap for female founders, particularly in gaming. Yes, it’s not all bad news and there are a few positive longer-term trends, but as a women-founded and led studio actively seeking funding, it is particularly discouraging for us to see the trends moving backwards in 2024.”
She added, “Funding women-led companies isn’t charity—it’s a *smart business decision. Research shows female entrepreneurs often out perform their male counterparts. We also note women make up a significant portion of the gaming audience, representing a major and often overlooked demographic that Simply Sweet Games is on a mission to address.”
And she said, “It’s time for investors to back teams like ours, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s the profitable thing to do.”
Terry Redfield, cofounder of Wicked Fox Games, said in a message to GamesBeat, “I’m feeling the 2% because even though I’ve been told I was the first woman to raise over $1 million back in 2015, and my pedigree has vastly improved since then. Yet I am encountering the same friction to raise today as I did back then. I keep being told ‘but it’s a hard time to raise’. However, women led companies are still pegged at the same ratio as they were prior to the current market challenges.”
She added, “I believe this figure boils down to the current pool of investors being predominantly men. They are looking to minimize risk as much as possible and that means investing in what they know. It’s going to take a women led studio that scales and becomes successful to break the mold and help mitigate the bias. However, this is a chicken and egg problem without any seed to do so. Yet, this is my goal for Wicked Fox.”
There is research that shows that women generally perform better than men at running startups.
“Growing up, I was often the only girl in the group, since most of my fellow gamers were guys. Now, as an investor, it’s no surprise to see that so few women founders in gaming are successfully raising venture capital—only 0.11% of total game venture capital deal value in 2024—because there simply aren’t many to begin with,” said Ernestine Fu Mak, managing partner of Brave Capital, in a message to GamesBeat.
Another venture capitalist, Eitan Reisel, cofounder of Vgames, said in a message to GamesBeat, “We at Vgames are doing everything we can to promote female led studios. Out of the deal flow, it accounts for around 10% of opportunities, while conversion to investment is hard. This worries me especially due to the fact that it does not align at all with the data of gender playing games. We try to promote women in the industry in many ways. I think one of the main points is lack of female senior leadership in gaming companies. Many of our founders ‘came out of school’ before starting their own and I do believe that this will increase dramatically the percentages over time.”
Both Women in Games International (WIGI) has an GDC annual networking event related to the Game Developers Conference in March, and Women-Led Games recently did a pre-GDC showcase.
Perrin Kaplan, founder of Zebra Partners public relations, said in a message to GamesBeat, “I see rays of sunshine of growth for women leaders in leading companies or raising funds. I long for the day that it’s an even playing field, and I hope it’s soon. As a founder myself, I was raised to shoot for the stars, and most of us only know that way.”
Not everyone wants to talk about this subject. I asked one seasoned woman entrepreneur what she thought about it. She said she was raising money and would prefer not to poke that bear now.
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