UK Government-Backed Fund For Female Founders Reaches £130 Million First Close

The fund, called “Women backing Women,” aims to help close the funding gap between male and female entrepreneurs by increasing investment in women-led businesses.

A UK government-backed initiative supporting female entrepreneurs has reached a £250 million first close through Bootstrap4F. The fund brings together backing from major institutions including Barclays, the British Business Bank, M&G plc, and Nationwide, and forms part of a wider £635 million investment pool under the Invest in Women Taskforce.

Bootstrap4F said it will now begin investing in fund managers that meet gender diversity and commercial returns criteria to reflect “the Taskforce’s core conviction that backing female and mixed-gender teams is not simply the right thing to do, but a smart investment decision”.

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Despite this, women-led businesses continue to receive a very small share of funding. Women business owners receive less than 2% of all equity investment, and in 2025 fully female-founded teams received just 1.75% of £18 billion invested.

To address this gap, a proposed Female Enterprise Investment Scheme was highlighted as one of 26 recommendations in a report by the Women and Equalities Committee last year.

Chair Sarah Owen MP said the committee received “concerning evidence that female entrepreneurs face significant disadvantages in accessing finance, networks and support due to systemic bias, a lack of diversity among investment decision-makers and entrenched cultural norms”.

Hannah Bernard, co-chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce, said: “This is not an act of goodwill, it is a commercial and economic imperative. Women-led businesses deliver 35% higher returns and re-directing capital to female and mixed teams represents one of the most significant untapped opportunities for UK economic growth. The breadth of institutional backing in this first close demonstrates the investment ecosystem is beginning to act on what the evidence shows.”