Key Takeaways
- • Companies founded solely by women received about 1% of U.S. venture capital in 2025 according to PitchBook, while the broader female-founded category captured a record $73.6 billion, roughly 27.7% of U.S. venture dollars, but two-thirds of that went to AI.
- • Lavinia Errico, co-founder of Equinox, advises founders to question whether they need to raise equity at all and has proposed a monthly revenue-share model in which investors are repaid from company cash flow while founders keep their equity.
- • Rachel Springate of Muse Capital says family offices are a structural bottleneck, with roughly 91% of chief investment officers being men and women holding just 8.6% of family-office CIO roles, per UBS and Campden Wealth research.
- • More than $326 billion sits in U.S. donor-advised funds according to the DAF Research Collaborative, and Springate argues that DAF money can be invested in for-profit, impact-generating companies, though most donors are unaware of this option.
- • Jessica Bragdon's Koala Eco, bootstrapped with her husband Paul, has reached a U.S. $30 million+ business with revenue more than doubling year on year.
Summary
A new generation of women entrepreneurs is reshaping how wealth is given back, funding founders directly rather than waiting to write philanthropic checks, according to a Forbes feature profiling three of them. The article frames the backdrop with PitchBook data: companies founded solely by women received about 1% of venture capital in 2025, and the author notes that the all-women share has barely moved in a decade.
Lavinia Errico, who co-founded the luxury fitness brand Equinox with her brothers after opening its first club on Manhattan's Upper West Side in 1991, now mentors founders and invests in companies including BeSound, a breast cancer screening startup. Her advice runs against the standard venture playbook. She asks founders why they want to give away equity and proposes alternatives, including a model for a women's health company expanding into Texas in which investors fund the business the way one buys and rents an apartment, receiving monthly payments tied to company revenue while the founder retains ownership.
Rachel Springate, co-founding general partner of Muse Capital, an early-stage firm she launched with Assia Grazioli-Venier in 2016, focuses on women's health, childcare and elder care. She said emerging managers struggle to raise institutional capital and often turn to family offices, where she says roughly 91% of chief investment officers are men. Her portfolio includes Midi Health, a virtual menopause clinic that recently reached a $1 billion valuation. The article cites AllRaise data that about 13% of venture capital decision-makers are women and only about 1% are general partners.
The article reports that PitchBook's March 2026 report showed startups with at least one woman founder raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, or 27.7% of U.S. venture dollars. However, two-thirds of that went to AI, and Anthropic and Scale AI together took more than $30 billion. All-women founding teams raised 22% less in 2025 while all-male teams raised 21% more. Female-founded deal counts have declined for four straight years, though exit value more than doubled last year and female-founded unicorns are valued at a combined $481 billion.
Springate points to donor-advised funds, which hold more than $326 billion in the U.S. according to the DAF Research Collaborative, as an underused source of impact capital. She says some specialized DAF sponsors allow for-profit impact investments with returns flowing back into the account, but many donors are unaware of this and managers are often reluctant to approve such requests. The article also notes that private foundations are generally required to pay out only about 5% of assets annually.
Jessica Bragdon co-founded Koala Eco, a plant-based cleaning brand, with her husband Paul, bootstrapping it into a U.S. $30 million+ business across Australia and the United States. Its break came when Erewhon became its first U.S. retailer, and the brand is now also sold at Sprouts and Whole Foods Market.
Lavinia Errico, who co-founded the luxury fitness brand Equinox with her brothers after opening its first club on Manhattan's Upper West Side in 1991, now mentors founders and invests in companies including BeSound, a breast cancer screening startup. Her advice runs against the standard venture playbook. She asks founders why they want to give away equity and proposes alternatives, including a model for a women's health company expanding into Texas in which investors fund the business the way one buys and rents an apartment, receiving monthly payments tied to company revenue while the founder retains ownership.
Rachel Springate, co-founding general partner of Muse Capital, an early-stage firm she launched with Assia Grazioli-Venier in 2016, focuses on women's health, childcare and elder care. She said emerging managers struggle to raise institutional capital and often turn to family offices, where she says roughly 91% of chief investment officers are men. Her portfolio includes Midi Health, a virtual menopause clinic that recently reached a $1 billion valuation. The article cites AllRaise data that about 13% of venture capital decision-makers are women and only about 1% are general partners.
The article reports that PitchBook's March 2026 report showed startups with at least one woman founder raised a record $73.6 billion in 2025, or 27.7% of U.S. venture dollars. However, two-thirds of that went to AI, and Anthropic and Scale AI together took more than $30 billion. All-women founding teams raised 22% less in 2025 while all-male teams raised 21% more. Female-founded deal counts have declined for four straight years, though exit value more than doubled last year and female-founded unicorns are valued at a combined $481 billion.
Springate points to donor-advised funds, which hold more than $326 billion in the U.S. according to the DAF Research Collaborative, as an underused source of impact capital. She says some specialized DAF sponsors allow for-profit impact investments with returns flowing back into the account, but many donors are unaware of this and managers are often reluctant to approve such requests. The article also notes that private foundations are generally required to pay out only about 5% of assets annually.
Jessica Bragdon co-founded Koala Eco, a plant-based cleaning brand, with her husband Paul, bootstrapping it into a U.S. $30 million+ business across Australia and the United States. Its break came when Erewhon became its first U.S. retailer, and the brand is now also sold at Sprouts and Whole Foods Market.
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