The Taskforce exists, its backers say, to tackle the major difficulty that female-led startups have in gaining access to funding.

Business Growth Fund (BGF), a fund backed by several UK-listed banks, said it has committed £300 million ($406 million) to the Invest in Women Taskforce.

The Taskforce’s funding pool supports female-powered businesses. The latest announcement incorporates the BGF’s initial £25 million commitment to the Invest in Women Taskforce (IWT) initiative and takes the funding pool total committee funds to more than £500 million, the Taskforce said in a statement.

The government-backed Taskforce is a private sector programme to tackle the underfunding of female founders in the UK.

The latest funding is part of the BGF’s broader £3 billion pledge to fuel the next generation of high-potential companies nationwide over the next five years. The BGF, which was founded in 2011, is backed by major UK banks including Lloyds, NatWest, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Barclays.

The Taskforce says female business founders continue to face problems, citing data from Beauhurst – the private data source on companies – showing that in 2024, 2.0 per cent of UK equity investment went to all-female founded teams, down from 2.5 per cent in 2023.

“It marks a turning point in how we back women-led enterprise and setting a minimum proportion of invested funds is exactly the kind of action that can start to reshape our business landscape for the better. Yet the scale of the challenge is vast – we need more institutions to show the leadership and vision that BGF have by pledging support to female entrepreneurs and investors – and reap the commercial returns and economic benefits it can yield,” Debbie Wosskow, co-chair, Invest in Women Taskforce, said.

BGF has led in female-driven scale-ups for the past five years, having invested £500 million since 2011. BGF backs earlier-stage businesses in the life sciences and deep tech sectors, and growth-stage businesses typically generating £1 million to £10 million profit. Examples of female-led firms backed by BGF include Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD), a fabless* semiconductor company which was Say out from Cambridge University in 2016; J&B Recycling; and Kids Planet, the nursery group.

*a semiconductor company without a production line.

(Main picture from left to right: Debbie Wosskow and Hannah Bernard. Bernard is co-chair.)