Now is the time for making predictions and bets for the year ahead. Here’s one: 2025 will be a breakthrough year for innovations driven by and for women. Now is also the time for making New Year’s resolutions. So, let’s make 2025 the year we all invest in women.
You’ve probably heard of the so-called “funding gap”—the fact that companies solely founded by women receive just 2% of venture capital dollars. That number has barely budged in 15 years. And it’s not for lack of trying: Between 2019 and 2023, women in the U.S. started roughly twice as many new businesses as men.
Closing the gap isn’t about fairness; it’s about inefficiency and opportunity. After all, does anyone really believe women have only 2% of the good ideas?
A $32 trillion opportunity
Because women have long been underserved, they often recognize opportunities that have been hiding in plain sight—market gaps they identified because they experienced them personally. A recent report from BCG identified this as a $32 trillion opportunity.
Take menopause—hardly a new trend, but suddenly care for it is moving from the margins to the mainstream, with companies jockeying to break into a market estimated at $600 billion and growing. In 2025, I expect at least one of these companies will reach unicorn status.
Across women’s health, VC investment increased by more than 314% from 2018 to 2023, according to Silicon Valley Bank. In digital health specifically, VC investment fell 27% between 2022 and 2023, while funds into women’s health tech rose 5%, according to Deloitte. In 2025, I think we’ll see a woman’s health company file to go public.
Technology built by women is also set to shake up employee benefits—a $2.8 trillion market. In 2025, financial fitness may emerge as the next frontier in employee well-being. Access to inclusive financial health tools will help employees—including women underserved by traditional investment products—build wealth and reduce financial stress, which MetLife says is the leading cause of poor mental health among workers.
Elsewhere, women’s innovations are bringing new flexibility and choice to employer health benefits by leveraging the U.S. Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA). Vendors that allow employees to select their own coverage using tax-free employer contributions will help women—and anyone with specialized health-care needs—access better and more affordable care.
Women-based investment strategy
Opportunities like these are what fuel our work at Ingeborg Investments, a venture-style fund I started in 2019. A key part of our investment strategy is seeking out categories that have been underestimated and artificially deflated due to gender-related stigma. Our investments include a virtual care clinic dedicated to serving the 75 million American women in mid-life; a company working to normalize emergency contraception for the 65 million U.S. women of childbearing age; a startup improving access to health care for the 165 million people with vaginas; and a digital platform that helps the nearly three-quarters of moms who are working parents stay in the labor force at every stage of their journey.
These gaps are fertile ground for innovation and money-making ideas. Looking for the next billion-dollar market? A burning problem that hasn’t been solved? A product that millions of people didn’t know they needed but suddenly can’t live without? Ask a woman.
Whether it’s innovations in health, family care, or financial security, women-founded companies are poised to address problems millions of consumers—especially women—are eager to solve.
The challenges women face in securing venture capital have been well-documented, from pitch room questions disproportionately focused on risk to penalties for past failure to a culture that stigmatizes and overlooks products built for women.
Venture capital funds the future by connecting out-of-the-box thinkers with significant resources and taking big swings on bold ideas. So, it matters who decides which market needs get met—or get recognized in the first place. The good news is, the number of female partners at VC funds has almost doubled to 18% in the past 5 years, according to AllRaise.
The feminization of wealth
Equity is a synonym for financial capital—and capital powers progress. So, here’s one more prediction: Women aren’t going to wait to be granted equity; we will increasingly build it for ourselves.
By 2030, women are collectively set to inherit roughly $30 trillion from the baby boomer generation, a phenomenon Ellevest calls “the feminization of wealth.” According to a recent survey of 500 retail investors, more than a third of pre-retiree women anticipate receiving more than $1 million.
If even a fraction of this wealth is invested in women entrepreneurs, it could change the funding game—and our economy—for good.
Over the past five years, we’ve backed more than 20 women-led venture funds and invested in more than two dozen women-led companies whose innovations empower and improve motherhood, careers, financial security, women’s health, and better living. Over the next five years, we plan to double that number—not because doing so is nice but because it’s smart.
If you’re a VC, fund a women-led startup. If you’re an individual investor, allocate part of your portfolio to women. If you’re an entrepreneur, mentor the next generation of women founders. Now is the time to bet big on women.
Read more:
- Female founders are crashing the billionaire club
- Kim Kardashian turned Skims into a $4 billion company. She wants to build the next generation of unicorns with SKKY Partners, her new private equity firm
- Female founders, CEOs, and VCs share their top insights from AI to robotics at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech
- From Glossier to Away: The meteoric rise of female-founded consumer goods companies might be over as investor preferences shift
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
