The first pan-European dataset on why women aren’t investing in venture capital — across 21 countries.
FOV Ventures + 15 research partners across Europe
Foreword
In 2025, we started asking a simple question:
why aren’t more women investing in venture capital funds?
Not as founders — that conversation is well-documented. As Limited Partners. The people who write the cheques that fund the funds.
The European VC ecosystem has spent a decade measuring the gender gap in founding teams and fund management. But almost no one has measured it at the LP level — the layer where capital allocation decisions are made, where fund economics are shaped, and where access to the asset class is determined.
This is not an advocacy document. It is a structural analysis. The data challenges several assumptions the industry holds about female investors — and points to specific, buildable solutions.
This report speaks to two audiences. First, to the women across Europe exploring venture capital as an asset class — your experience is the data. Second, to the GPs, fund-of-funds, aggregators, and policymakers who design the structures — your decisions determine who gets access.
The findings challenge the assumption that female LP participation is held back by confidence or knowledge. It is held back by product design and a regulatory framework that was not designed for this segment of investor.
Thank you to all the partners who opened their European networks to this survey. Thank you to Dave Haynes and Petri Rajahalme at FOV Ventures for the room to build this in a busy year.
And to every woman who shared her data: thank you. This report is for you.
This is only the beginning. I hope this report ignites the diversity conversation at the LP layer, too — in your fund, your boardroom, your network. Let’s build it together.
The gap between women who want to invest as LPs and women who actually do is structural, not motivational.
A pan-European sample across 21 countries. Not financially naive — over a third are VC, fund, or family office professionals, and one in five are active angels.
Hover any bubble to see countries
How today’s LPs got here
Active LPs (58%) vs Explorers (42%) · share of each cohort
For VC and finance insiders, reaching LP status is a natural next step. For corporate executives and startup operators — the two largest groups outside venture — the path narrows sharply. The structural gap isn’t capital, it’s access.
Three cuts of the full sample — where they sit, what they want, what they’d fund.
The full sample, split by where they sit today
Financial returns dominate both cohorts
This isn’t an impact-investing story. Financial returns are the goal in both cohorts. The real gap is clarity — 28% of explorers haven’t decided what they want yet, vs only 3% of active LPs.
Nearly identical across both cohorts
Sector preference travels with the sample, not the cohort. The top four are the same for both active LPs and explorers. Whoever's writing cheques and whoever's thinking about it want to fund the same things.
Source: Female LP Pathways Survey 2026 | Multiple selections allowed on background and sector questions
Where the capital comes from
Primary source of investable capital reported by respondents.
Multiple selections allowed. Percentages do not sum to 100%.
A third of women considering LP investing are ready to act right now. They’d write the cheque at €10K. The product they want isn’t easy to find.
One in three Explorers are ready. They score 7+ on likelihood. They have the capital. They understand the mechanics. They haven’t invested — because the standard product doesn’t let them in.
Source: Female LP Pathways Survey 2026 | Investment likelihood rated 1–10 | Ready cohort = Explorers scoring 7+
Different segments hit different walls. Explorers struggle to get in; Active LPs struggle to stay in; Family Offices struggle with quality assurance — trustworthy GPs and transparent reporting matter more than ticket size.
Source: Female LP Pathways Survey 2026 | Multiple selections allowed (up to 3)
Most VC funds require €100K+ to participate. Among women already exploring LP investing with high intent to act — 94% would invest at €10K. Only 31% at €50K. The cliff is real, and it sits exactly where the regulatory floor does.
Willingness collapses as the minimum climbs
Women actively exploring LP investing with high intent to act
In most European jurisdictions, investing in a VC fund requires “professional investor” classification under AIFMD — broadly, a substantial portfolio plus trading experience. Some markets have introduced “semi-professional” tiers with reduced minimums, but the qualifying entry point typically remains in the hundreds of thousands of euros. The framework that exists to protect retail investors is the same framework that locks them out of diversified, professionally managed venture exposure.
Indicative summary — rules vary by jurisdiction and update over time.
Below €25K: The market opens — 69–94% of high-intent women are willing. These price points map directly to ELTIF 2.0 thresholds but don’t exist in most European fund structures today.
€25K–€50K: The cliff zone — willingness drops sharply from 69% at €25K to 31% at €50K. Over half fall off at this jump.
€100K+: The institutional floor — only 38% of high-intent women remain. This is where 8% plan allocations above €250K, driven by family offices and institutional LPs.
In most European jurisdictions, investing in a VC fund typically requires “professional investor” classification under AIFMD — broadly, a substantial portfolio plus trading experience. Some markets have introduced lower “semi-professional” tiers, but minimums vary widely and the qualifying entry point typically remains in the hundreds of thousands of euros.
This creates a real-world paradox: an individual can typically write a tens-of-thousands cheque directly into a single startup with limited friction — concentrating risk in one company, one outcome. But putting the same amount into a diversified, professionally managed VC fund often requires clearing a higher regulatory bar. The protective framework achieves the opposite of its intent.
ELTIF 2.0 (effective 2024) removed the retail minimum and was designed to open this path. But adoption in venture capital specifically remains very limited — for structural reasons, not lack of awareness.
Why ELTIF doesn’t map to VC: the framework was designed for asset classes with more predictable cash flows and exit timing — private debt, infrastructure, buyout PE. Its diversification, redemption, and reporting rules don’t fit traditional VC’s concentrated portfolios, follow-on reserves, and long lock-up profile. The compliance infrastructure (depositary, transfer agency, NAV aggregation, retail distribution) is also expensive enough to be uneconomical for a typical European early-stage fund.
What already exists: a lighter EU marketing passport (EuVECA) is available to smaller VC managers, but its semi-professional minimum still sits well above the access threshold this data describes. For sub-€100K tickets, the structural alternative is pooled vehicles — feeder funds and LP syndicates that aggregate small cheques (€5–25K) into a single institutional-sized ticket. Platforms are building the operational rails to make this economically viable. The infrastructure is emerging — but supply has not yet caught up with the demand this data shows.
The demand signal in this data is a direct input to that regulatory conversation. ELTIF is a real innovation — but VC needs a tailored carve-out, not a general-purpose vehicle built for a different part of the alternatives market.
Directional summary based on publicly available regulator guidance and industry sources. Investors should consult qualified counsel before relying on any specific threshold.
Source: Female LP Pathways Survey 2026
Education matters. So does access. The data points to a question of sequencing: willingness runs ahead of confidence. Active LPs and Explorers sit 0.38 points apart on confidence — a small gap that is not statistically significant. And the less confident are often more willing to invest, not less. The audience is ready. Access needs to catch up — in parallel with education, not after it.
Confidence parity
Active LPs vs Explorers
points separate them on a 1–5 scale, across seven topics
Capability is effectively the same on both sides. The gap between exploring and active isn’t knowledge — it’s structured access.
Willingness leads confidence
Willingness to invest at the lowest ticket sizes
The inversion is real. Even at the lowest ticket sizes, willingness doesn’t follow confidence — the least confident are the most willing. This suggests the barrier is access, not readiness.
Where education meets the market
Legal & tax — the one real literacy gap
the weakest confidence area — 2.27/5 for explorers, 67% in the bottom two tiers
A concrete target for LP education programmes. Structural literacy here — standard templates, disclosure norms, plain-language docs — is where courses and access-building meet.
Active LPs (pink) and Explorers (stone) track each other across every topic. Legal & tax is the lowest for both.
Trust in VC isn’t one thing. It runs on two parallel tracks — and both need to clear before capital moves. A warm intro without performance data isn’t enough. Strong returns without a personal connection don’t convert.
Personal trust
The relationship track
cite a trusted personal reference as their #1 trust signal
GP brand (24%) and anchor LP social proof (33%) reinforce the signal — but the warm intro is the gate. In this asset class, relationships are infrastructure.
Performance trust
The numbers track
require proven DPI / TVPI / IRR before committing
Transparent communication (41%) and audited financials (13%) add weight. Returns aren’t the only signal — but without them, the relationship doesn’t convert.
Discovery is personal
How LPs first find VC funds
cite personal networks as their #1 fund discovery channel — more than all other channels combined
Angel & LP communities (25%) come second. GP outreach, events, banks, and media barely register. If you’re not in the network, you don’t see the fund.
What builds trust in a fund manager
Eight signals ranked by the full sample
How LPs first discover VC funds
Personal networks dominate entry
Source: Female LP Pathways Survey 2026
The ecosystem runs on assumptions about female LPs. We tested six of them. Tap any card to see what the data says.
Concrete, audience-specific actions grounded in the data.
If you’re raising a fund and want to build a structurally diverse LP base — not as a marketing line, but as a pipeline decision.
A risk-management lens on LP-base diversity. Concentrated LP bases are an investment risk to your portfolio — not a market-development project.
If you’re considering VC as an asset class and want a practical pathway from first cheque to serious allocation.
If you shape VC policy, fund public capital programmes, or run ecosystem organisations that touch LP access.
This report isn’t a critique of the European VC ecosystem — it’s a map. The capital exists. The willingness exists. The sophistication exists. What’s missing is infrastructure: pooled structures that start at €10K, legal and tax education that goes beyond introductory slides, and GPs who design their LP base with the same rigour they apply to their founders.
If the structural fixes in this report land in the next five years, we’d expect the female LP share of European venture funds to move meaningfully upward — matching the demand signal this data already shows. In ten years, this becomes the default: pooled entry points, diversified LP bases, and a pathway from €10K first-time LP to €500K institutional allocator. None of it is technically hard. All of it is a choice.
FOV Ventures is committed to building these pathways alongside the partners who’ve shaped this research. This is the first of many editions.
Preferred learning formats
What aspiring LPs actually want
The data points the way. These are the next steps we’re building.
The VC Lab LP Institute is a structured programme that takes you from terminology to first-LP decision — exactly the gap our data points to. We recommend it as the next step.
When applying, mention FOV Ventures under “How did you hear about us?”
The next chapter of Female LP Pathways. November 18–19, 2026 · Helsinki. We announce details to our closest network first — subscribe to Viewpoints, FOV Ventures’ newsletter on the next era of computing (robotics, AI, spatial), to get them in your inbox.
This report exists because women across 21 countries took the time to answer detailed, personal questions about money, confidence, and ambition. Thank you.
It also exists because 15 organisations and dozens of individuals helped distribute the survey, test the instrument, and sharpen the analysis.
And to every woman who shared her data — thank you. This report is for you.
How the data was collected, cleaned, analysed, and pressure-tested. Built to be replicable and annually repeatable.
42-question anonymous online survey, co-designed with institutional LPs and tested with 12 pilot respondents. Covers capital readiness, structural barriers, knowledge, confidence, trust signals.
15 ecosystem partner channels across 21 European countries. Nov 2025 – Mar 2026. Targeted to women with investable capital or active VC interest.
Distribution analysis, cross-variable comparison, gap computation between intention and action. All percentages rounded to the nearest point.
Findings triangulated against existing ecosystem research, pressure-tested with a review panel of GPs, FoFs, and institutional LPs before publication.
Respondent profile · 21 countries
Limitations
Research lead
Data & distribution
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