The proportion of UK female-led companies has increased by just 0.5 percentage points year on year, according to new data.
Women-led companies now make up 17.3% of the UK total, up from 16.8% in the year prior, according to The Gender Index.
While there was a 14.8% rise in the number of female-led companies that secured external funding, the gender divide remains vast. Male-led companies received seven times more funding than those led by women, the analysis of 4.5 million active companies conducted by data analytics platform mnAi found.
It showed that the majority of funding going to female founders are Gen Z and millennials. There was a small year-on-year increase in the percentage of female representation in leadership roles at ethnic minority-led companies, rising from 19.2% to 19.3%....