Unlocking Diversity: Female, Immigrant and Minority-Ethnic Founders in the UK Tech Sector

In partnership with AWS, we’ve published a report examining the state of diversity within the UK tech sector, providing insight into the challenges and successes of female tech founders and other underrepresented entrepreneurs. The report examines funding, accelerated businesses and those receiving innovation grants. We’ve summarised the key points below, but you can read our in-depth analysis in the full report.

Key Findings

• Over the past decade, tech companies with at least one female founder secured £8.52b in equity investment, £505m in grant funding, and attended 228 accelerators.
• Immigrant founders in the UK captured 60.4% of the total value of equity funding, despite constituting 39.1% of the high-growth tech sector.
• Tech companies with minority-ethnic founders secured 46.6% of equity investment since 2013, outpacing their population representation of 35.1%.

Female Founders in Tech

Company incorporations with at least one female director have been steadily increasing. They grew from 211k to a record 272k between 2013 and 2022—however, this represents only 34.2% of the total incorporations in 2022. While 16.3% of high-growth tech companies are led by female founders, these companies have received just 8.96% of equity investment since 2013.

Equity investment into tech companies with only female founders—proportion of all equity investment into tech companies (2013-2022)

Despite these challenges, progress is being made. Equity investment for tech companies with at least one female founder has grown 25-fold since 2013, reaching £1.85b in 2022. The number of deals for all-female founded tech companies increased over 600% from 43 in 2013 to 313 in 2022, securing £557m in funding, and mixed-gender founding teams raised £1.30b through 538 deals in 2022.

Our full report digs deeper into these companies, with spotlights on women led startups, the top sectors for companies with one or more women led founders, and the fastest growing companies over the last three years with female founders. We’ve also examined the top regions in the UK by high-growth tech companies with one or more women founders, and grant funding over the last decade.

Immigrant Founders in Tech

Top tech sectors for high-growth tech companies with one or more founders from outside the UK (2023)

The number, and value, of equity deals secured by tech companies with one or more founders from outside the UK has grown significantly over the last decade. Between 2013 and 2022, the equity deals secured by these companies grew from £794m to £12.6b, and the number of deals increased from 765 to 2,784. Despite forming 39.1% of the tech sector, these companies have received 60.4% of the total equity funding since 2013.

Ethnically Underrepresented Founders in Tech

The value of equity raised by ethnically underrepresented founders has increased from £512m in 2013 to £10.4b in 2022. The total tech company population in the UK with one or more ethnically underrepresented founders stands at 35.1%, while their fundraisings total 46.6% of all equity investments secured by tech companies in the last decade.