Our Next Billion Momentum Report marks a defining milestone: over $1 billion deployed by our partner funds into women-founded companies. Six years ago, Beyond The Billion began as a bold pledge. Today, it’s a global platform mobilizing GPs, LPs, and capital allocators committed to driving systemic change.
We are proud to share some key insights from 64% of our fund partners—what’s worked, what’s needed, and what’s next. From data to case studies, this is a snapshot of a movement gaining momentum—with #MeritInMotion guiding the way.
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#MeritInMotion
What is #MeritInMotion?
It’s the belief that investing in women isn’t a favor—it’s a smart, returns-driven strategy. True merit doesn’t just rise on its own—it must be intentionally surfaced and backed with capital that sees beyond the status quo.
This report shares key insights and lessons from Our Next Billion Momentum Report, centered around three goals:
- Holding ourselves and our partner funds accountable
- Contributing to global gender-lens investing data and best practices
- Capturing the impact of the Our Next Billion campaign
What We Measured & What It Means
This is not an exhaustive report, but a snapshot of progress within a $1 billion capital pool. For context, global VC investment in all-female founding teams reached $6.7B in 2024, just 2.3% of the $289B deployed. Despite some gains, the share of capital to women-led ventures remains stubbornly low.
The sharp fluctuations in these figures (2019-2025) over time highlight how progress for female founders remains precarious—often among the first casualties in times of market stress. Researchers at the World Economic Forum have aptly described this pattern as “dispensable diversity.” That’s why intentional, coordinated efforts like Beyond The Billion are still essential.
Our framework for tracking progress is rooted in both accountability and insight.
While the gender venture investment gap has been increasingly documented—through efforts like PitchBook’s Women in VC and DealStreetAsia’s Women in Startups in Southeast Asia—this report offers a focused lens on capital actually deployed by 122 funds that pledged through Beyond The Billion’s capital campaign. It analyzes both quantitative outcomes and qualitative strategies to answer:
- How much was deployed by December 31, 2024?
- What’s working in fueling women-led innovation?
- How can LPs better support GPs who over-index on female founders?
While we don’t claim all capital deployed was solely due to our campaign, this collective effort has undeniably shifted behavior and directed meaningful capital to where it’s long been overlooked. Our mission goes beyond tracking dollars—we aim to capture momentum, highlight scalable strategies, and fast-track action toward closing the gender gap in venture. Through our on-the-ground efforts, we’ve also introduced our Partner Funds to new and untapped opportunities. A critical part of this is creating connections that unlock new opportunities—especially between GPs and LPs.
Executive Summary
Tracking Momentum and Accountability
Out of 122 pledged funds, 78 funds self-reported their data — bringing our response rate to 64%.
This group of 122 funds represents a significant sample in gender-lens VC, especially when compared to the 138 gender-lens funds globally identified in Project Sage 3.0.
Our partner funds collectively pledged nearly $1.8 billion to be deployed into women-founded companies:
- $1.04B from the original TBDF cohort (2018–2020)
- $745M from the Beyond The Billion pledge campaign (2020–2027)
As of this report, close to $1.05 billion has been deployed—representing 58.66% of total pledged capital. These investments have reached 1,302 women-founded companies, with approximately 65% going to diverse founding teams, 30% to all-female founding teams, and 5% unclassified.
BTB Universe of Funds: Our Global Reach
Top 5 Key Insights
Real Stories, Real Returns
Women Founders & Funders Changing the Game
We spotlight six venture firms that pledged capital through Beyond The Billion: Full In Partners, Aruwa Capital, Gobi Partners, Cortado Ventures, Demeter IM, Antler, and our Country Lead in Australia, Carol Schwartz of the Trawalla Group. Their stories show how intentional strategies—rooted in inclusive leadership, data-driven practices, and community engagement—have not only fueled women-led innovation but also delivered strong financial returns and impact across markets.
A critical part of our work creating connections that unlock new opportunities—especially between GPs and LPs. One example is the UK Investing in Women Taskforce selecting our pledged fund, Bootstrap Europe, to manage its new £250 million fund-of-funds.
Case Studies: Innovation From Seed to Scale
Full In Partners
Operates in growth-stage enterprise software, a sector where women founders are underrepresented.
Joined Beyond The Billion in 2019 with a $20M pledge to women founders; has over-delivered with $130M deployed to date.
In 2 out of 4 buyouts, appointed women as CEOs.
Antler
Runs a 12-week founder residency, reducing bias in early-stage selection.
Female application rates remain around 23%, but funding outcomes haven’t improved proportionally.
Cortado Ventures
Applies a diversity lens to every investment; nearly 37% of portfolio companies have female leadership.
Deployed $3M into women-led ventures, spanning sectors from femtech to automation.
Gobi Partners
Deployed $159M into startups with female founders and gender-diverse teams; far exceeded their initial $50M pledge.
On average, these investments make up 46% of their portfolio.
Gender-diverse teams deliver results:
Startups with diverse leadership have a 1.98x MOIC, 62% higher than male-only teams.
Aruwa Capital
70% of portfolio companies are gender-aligned.
Portfolio companies have:
Grown 22x in revenue, generating over $181M.
Created 205,000+ jobs.
Demeter IM
Focused on sustainable innovation in climate tech, agri-food, and clean energy; increasingly invests in female-led and diverse teams, especially in deep tech and infrastructure.
ESG Report (2024) highlights:
29% international team representation.
33% of Management Board are women.
50% of 2023 hires were women, exceeding the French average of 28%.
Trawalla Group: Carol Schwartz AO
Founded by Carol Schwartz AO, a leading voice for gender equity in investing; backed women-led startups, funds, and systemic change.
Carol co-founded Scale Investors, catalyzing $20M into 46 women-led businesses, now valued at over $500M.
Now focuses on backing female GPs and venture firms; plays a critical role in mobilizing female-led family offices with patient, values-aligned capital.
As Beyond The Billion’s Australia Country Lead, Carol:
Enabled partnerships with firms like Blackbird Ventures.
Mobilized a dynamic network of fund partners across the region.
From Pledge to Power:
$1 Billion Now in the Hands of Women Founders
In October 2018, we launched The Billion Dollar Fund for Women with a clear and urgent mission: to challenge the systemic barriers that kept women founders on the sidelines—and to move real capital into their hands.
At the time, women were driving innovation across climate, fintech, healthtech, agtech, and more—yet receiving just 2.2% of global venture funding. Despite its promise of disruption, venture capital had stagnated: held back by closed networks, pattern-matching, and institutional inertia.
What began as a catalytic pledge campaign quickly became a global movement. We surpassed our $1Bn pledge goal in under nine months, powered by a wave of GPs—men and women—who saw the opportunity to invest better. For returns. For innovation. For equity.
We were clear then, and we remain clear now:
Investing in women isn’t charity—it’s smart capital.
Yet in 2025, the terrain is more complex. We’re navigating a global backlash against DEI, rising geopolitical tensions, and the disruptive acceleration of AI. The stakes are higher, the challenges more nuanced—but the mission more urgent than ever.
In the face of this, we are thrilled to report so many of our partner funds have stayed the course. Because the data still speaks: diverse teams outperform, and intentional capital remains one of our most powerful levers for systemic change.
To be clear: we do not claim that all capital deployed to women founders would not have flowed without our intervention. But we firmly believe that as a global community aligned around a bold goal, we helped accelerate those flows by showcasing what’s possible, built meaningful relationships which catalyzed significant capital, elevated accountability, and shifted the narrative around women in innovation.
We are proud to stand alongside leaders in this work—among others, All Raise, Global Women in VC, SheVC, European Women in VC, BLCKVC, and the legacy of GenderSmart, now part of 2X Global. We also take this moment to honor the life and leadership of Suzanne Biegel who has since passed, whose early vision galvanized a global field of gender-smart investing. Her impact endures.
Our Next Billion Momentum Report marks a milestone: six years since our founding, and the deployment by our partner funds collectively of their first billion. Created in collaboration with movement allies like All Raise, this report reflects not only what we’ve achieved, but what comes next.
We’ve moved from a pledge to a platform. Through Beyond The Billion, we now engage not just GPs, but LPs—family offices, institutions, and capital allocators—recognizing that true systems change requires alignment across the entire stack.
With data from 64% of our partners, we share what worked, where gaps remain, and the road ahead—with #MeritInMotion as our guiding force.
Some of our partners were trailblazers long before this movement began. Others are still working toward their goals. All are part of a shift that’s too important to slow down.
In a world defined by disruption, the need for inclusive, resilient, and regenerative innovation has never been greater.
With the first billion deployed, we mark the end of a bold beginning.
Thank you for standing with us—then and now—as we move toward what comes next.
