History in the Making: Meet the Top-Funded Female Entrepreneurs in 2022 (Thus Far)

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting female entrepreneurs who are leading, inspiring and shaping the future. We leveraged Crunchbase’s Diversity Spotlight data to curate this list of 10 top-funded companies founded and led by female entrepreneurs in 2022 so far.*

According to Crunchbase News, companies with female founders raised just 2.2 percent of all venture funding in 2021. That’s a lower share than any of the previous five calendar years—and it doesn’t stop there. VC funding to diverse female founders is even more insufficient, with Black female startup founders receiving just 0.34 percent of the total venture capital spent in the U.S. last year. With women underrepresented as both founders and VC partners, Crunchbase remains committed to highlighting the success of female-founded companies and raising visibility of the women behind them during Women’s History Month and beyond.

Know a female founder making history?
Share their story with us for a chance to be featured in our Female Founder Series on the Crunchbase blog.

We recognize that the women included on this list represent a small fraction of the many female founders and leaders who are paving the way to provide better access to opportunity for all aspiring female entrepreneurs.

​​Methodology

*This list was compiled leveraging Crunchbase’s Diversity Spotlight data. The companies featured below are listed in order based on the highest total funding. 

This article is focused on U.S. companies founded and currently led by female entrepreneurs. The companies featured on this list satisfy both women-founded and women-led Crunchbase Diversity Spotlight tags. Companies founded by male/female co-founding teams are not included in this list. 

The data in this article is based on announced funding to companies from Jan. 1 to Feb. 28, 2022. Funding includes seed, venture, corporate venture and private equity to venture-backed companies with founders associated. 

**If you notice missing data, it may mean that a company does not have founders listed, its Diversity Spotlight tags are not updated, or the funding round was not added to the Crunchbase dataset by March 8, 2022 (the day the data was pulled). To update this data, visit our Knowledge Center or reach out tospotlight@crunchbase.com.

1. Savage X Fenty

Total funding raised in 2022: $125 million
Founder: Robyn Rihanna Fenty
Diversity Spotlight tags: Black or African American Founded, Black or African American Led, Women Founded, Women Led

Denver-based Vangst is a recruiting platform specializing in connecting job seekers with opportunities in the cannabis industry. The company secured a $19 million Series B, led by Level One Fund.  The funding round also had participation from a variety of investors such as, Snoop Dogg’s VC Firm, Casa Verde Capital. As of January, the talent platform has raised a total of $31.5 million. 

How you can help raise visibility for female entrepreneurs

As we continue to measure progress toward closing the funding gap for female entrepreneurs, we encourage U.S. investors and startup leaders to get verified and add their diversity data to Crunchbase.

We also encourage you to track and report on the progress with us. Here are several Crunchbase lists that are enriched with insights on companies and investment firms with female founders:

• Female-founded U.S. based unicorns
• U.S. female-founded companies with last funding at Series A/B
• U.S. female-founded venture firms
• Female- founded U.S. companies that have raised $1M+

If you have an idea about how to improve Diversity Spotlight, please let us know by sending an email to spotlight@crunchbase.com. We take this feedback seriously and each suggestion for improvement helps inform our plans as we continue developing this feature.