On 25 November 2019, the theatre at the London Stock Exchange was full.
Founders, investors, advisers and students had come to hear women tell the story of how they raised equity funding. It was the first Funding Focus event.
It started with a question. A few months earlier, after I had spoken on stage about raising venture capital, a woman came over and asked me, “Why does so little VC funding go to female entrepreneurs?”
I had no idea. I told her I would find out.
What I found was stark. In 2017, all-female founding teams in the UK received less than 1% of venture capital, despite submitting 5% of the pitch decks. All-male teams submitted 75% of the decks and walked away with more than 89% of the money. Once you truly see something, it cannot be unseen.
So I wrote a book about it. Funded Female Founders came out in June 2022. My TEDx talk, “The Fight for Fairer Funding”, was starting to go viral. And I was working on what I believed was the answer: Funding Focus Investment Trust plc, a fund we planned to list on the London Stock Exchange to back female and underrepresented founders.
Here is the part I rarely talk about.
The cheque that never came
We met some of the biggest names in fund management. Every one of them told us how important the issue was. Not one of them wrote a cheque.
Then came the regulator. As a small, self-managed fund, we only needed to register with the FCA. The FCA took the view that we needed full approval. Five and a half months into that process, they told us there was a six-month deadline and we weren’t going to make it. Nobody had mentioned a deadline before. At their suggestion, we withdrew the application rather than be rejected for running out of time.
I was in Vancouver on my annual holiday when it ended. It was August 2022. The first person I told was my wife, Kate. She was empathetic, but there was nothing she could do. Then I spoke to the people who would have formed our board. Together, we agreed to pull the plug.
More than a year of work. Nearly six figures in cash. I was gutted.
Think about the timing. I had a book on the shelves. My talk was on its way to more than three million views. And I couldn’t raise a penny for a fund that everyone agreed was needed. Attention is not capital. Every female founder reading this already knows that. That summer, I learned it too.
Eighteen months
I’d like to tell you I bounced straight back. I didn’t. For eighteen months, I turned away from the whole mission.
It was Taryn and Thibau who brought me back. They had started Funding Focus with me in 2019. In 2024 they told me plainly that if we didn’t run another event, we might as well give up.
Giving up wasn’t an option. I knew it the moment they said it.
Even then, it wasn’t smooth. We lost the venue that had agreed to host us. After a scramble, we secured a beautiful room at the Institute of Directors, and about eighty people joined us. Our headline speaker was Dr Daniela Marino, Founder and CEO of CUTISS. She told the story of raising more than $100 million. I had first written about Daniela in Chapter 2 of the book. Hearing her tell it in person, after I had so nearly walked away, reminded me why we started.
The numbers haven’t moved
I wish I could tell you the picture has improved since that first event. It hasn’t. Here is PitchBook’s figure for the share of UK and European venture capital that went to all-female founding teams in each year since:
2020: 1.9%
2021: 1.3%
2022: 1.1%
2023: 1.6%
2024: 1.7%
2025: 1.3%
2026 (so far): 0.9%
Seven years of campaigns, reports and pledges. Not once has the figure reached 2%. And so far, this year is the lowest of them all.
There has been plenty of noise. The Invest in Women Taskforce launched with fanfare, and the British Business Bank has committed money to back female founders. But follow the money. It goes to fund managers, often through a fund of funds, and only then (maybe) to a founder. It travels through the same channel that has failed all-female teams every year since I started this work. Founders are still waiting for it to land.
What the room does to you
Those eighteen months taught me something. I spent one summer on the wrong side of a closed door, and it knocked me sideways. Female founders face doors like that every week. Most of the rooms behind them are held by men. Many of these women have been doing it for their whole careers.
The numbers matter. But on their own, they haven’t changed a thing. So this year, we’re going deeper into the human and psychological side than we ever have.
My niece, Juliana Christine Herlaar, registered therapeutic counsellor is coming over from the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia to speak. Her talk will focus on how women in business can authentically show up with men without abandoning their femininity, looking at the intergenerational impact of what women have carried to compete on an uneven playing field. Dr Mel Lee, founder of Freeing Female Founders, will lead on from this to focus on how women in business can use IFS (Internal Family System) techniques as the main method or superpower to find this authenticity within themselves so they can lead as they choose without abandoning any part of themselves. Juliana and Mel will thus be covering both the inside and the outside world of complex relationships.
And we’ll be making an announcement on the day. I can’t say more yet. I can tell you that you’ll want to be there when we do.
Join us on 25 November
Seven years to the day after that first full house, Funding Focus 2026 takes place on Wednesday 25 November, from 1pm to 5pm, at The Auditorium, Eversheds, One Wood Street, London.
Tickets are at Eventbrite.
When I wrote the book, I said I was dedicating the rest of my life to levelling the playing field. I meant it. I just didn’t expect one of the hardest parts of the journey to be finding my way back to it.
What closed door are you still standing in front of?
David B Horne
Founder of Add Then Multiply & Funding Focus
Add Then Multiply is a fractional finance and business scaling consultancy helping founder-led businesses at £1M–£10M+ to Fund, Acquire, Consolidate, and Exit.
