Copenhagen, Denmark (April 14th, 2026)

Today, Even Founders, the Nordic's largest incubator for early-stage women founders, released its “State of Nordic Women-Founded Startups 2025” report. The report tracked 219 Nordic companies (co-)founded by women that raised a combined €707 million in 2025, underscoring both the scale of the opportunity and the cost of continued underinvestment. The report found that despite being the most credentialed cohort of founders, women-only teams remain systematically underpriced and pushed into a cycle of grant dependency that weakens the signal chain needed for growth-stage investment.

61% of women-only Nordic founders tracked in 2025 hold a Master’s degree or PhD, and for women in mixed-gender founding teams, the figure climbs to 74%. Yet the average deal size is 2.8 times higher for women in mixed-gender founding teams — a difference that cannot be explained by pipeline, sector choice or qualifications. Meanwhile, the concentration of capital in male-led AI ventures and the exclusion of women-only teams from deep tech in 2025 suggest the European technology economy is narrowing its focus instead of expanding its problem-solving capacity to compete globally.

"The pattern most funds are working from was set a long time ago," says Ana Andonovska, Founder of Even Founders. "It describes a very specific kind of founder — and the Nordic VC trend is actively reinforcing it, not disrupting it. The consequence is a closed loop. Investors source deals through founders they already backed, and those founders refer people who resemble them. That means the same type of founder gets backed again and, in turn, refers even more founders like them.”

“Capital follows conviction. Conviction follows familiarity. And familiarity is a self-perpetuating system that never has to confront a new definition of what a fundable founder looks like. When investors source deals through their existing portfolio of founders and angels, they are outsourcing their judgment to a network that is already self-selecting”, Andonovska continued.

European industrial policy is betting billions on biotech, climate tech, and deep tech — sectors dominated by some of the Nordics’ most credentialed founders. Yet the “State of Nordic Women-Founded Startups 2025” report shows women-only founders are concentrated in femtech, health tech, and food tech — sectors solving problems that affect billions. Still, the funding mix of these companies points to weaker institutional conviction: 23% of rounds for women-only teams were grants, versus 12% for mixed-gender teams.

The research found that deep tech, which has zero women-only founding teams in the 2025 Nordic dataset, raised more capital than any other sector. One of those founders was Dr. Katja Rosti, who is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Avenue Biosciences, a Finnish-American biotechnology company that raised 5 million euros in additional funding last year to scale a protein engineering technology that significantly improves the manufacturability of protein-based therapies.

“A strong scientific basis is essential in deep technology right now, but in addition, we understand that sustainable businesses are both changing the world and profitable," comments Dr. Rosti, who is also an entrepreneur-mentor in the Even Founders Startup School.

“Life-changing discoveries take time and require patience in capital return throughout the scale-up phase when the technology continues to evolve.  Because we ourselves in EVEN Founders have been part of this long road in all the different capacities, our work is to give peer support to other female founders, subsequently narrowing the gap between entrepreneurs and VCs so that solid revenue opportunities are not being ignored and brilliant scientific ideas get the chance to impact the world,” Rosti continued.

The highlights of the report were presented at a private event on April 10th, 2026, in Copenhagen, where members of Even Founders shared a deeper dive into the data, insights, and discussed practicalities of moving forward during 2026. The Even Founders' Funded! 2025 report is now available at evenfounders.com, alongside a Nordic Fundraising Intelligence tool built from the same dataset. It is designed to show founders what comparable companies raised and which investors backed them.

Further information:‍

Media kit with images.
For any questions or input, feel free to reach out to us via hello@evenfounders.com.

Even Founders

Even Founders is Nordic's largest incubator for early-stage women founders, supporting women founders from the earliest stages of building a company through hands-on and step-by-step support. We combine first-hand experience with a passion for helping female founders succeed. The organization collaborates with investors and companies to help them increase gender diversity in their portfolio and support women founders. Our Startup School helps women go from an idea to a business in just 8 weeks, using a unique combination of e-learning modules, live sessions, mentorship, and community events, enabling female founders to take their first steps into entrepreneurship, equipping them with the tools and support to take their business to the next level. For more information, visit the Even Founders website at http://evenfounders.com.