{"id":2037,"date":"2026-09-20T21:30:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T21:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/?p=2037"},"modified":"2026-09-20T22:50:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T22:50:25","slug":"women-led-startups-in-the-region-raised-2-5-million-in-six-months-against-1-7-billion-for-male-founded-ones-the-gap-is-one-of-access-and-it-is-also-one-of-scale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/2026\/09\/20\/women-led-startups-in-the-region-raised-2-5-million-in-six-months-against-1-7-billion-for-male-founded-ones-the-gap-is-one-of-access-and-it-is-also-one-of-scale\/","title":{"rendered":"Women-led startups in the region raised $2.5 million in six months, against $1.7 billion for male-founded ones. The gap is one of access, and it is also one of scale."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Startups in the Middle East and North Africa raised $1.7 billion across 242 funding rounds in the first half of 2026, according to Wamda. Female-founded companies secured just $2.5 million through 14 transactions, or 0.14% of the total. Male-founded startups captured about 95% of capital, raising roughly $1.6 billion across 213 deals. Mixed-gender founding teams accounted for the remainder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A gap in deal size, not only in deal count<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wamda’s figures also point to a difference in ticket size. Our calculation from its data puts the average round for a female-founded startup at around $180,000, against about $7.5 million for a male-founded one, a ratio of roughly 1 to 40. The challenge for women founders is therefore not only getting funded but reaching capital large enough to scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A persistent trend<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gap is not new to the second quarter. Wamda’s March 2026 report noted that no disclosed funding went to female-founded startups that month, mirroring February. Overall funding was also weaker. The H1 total is 18% below the $2.1 billion raised in H1 2025, and deal volume fell 28%. Wamda describes a market that is more selective and less reliant on debt, which made up 29% of capital raised, down from 44% a year earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The figures also say something about how capital is concentrated. The UAE alone accounted for about 70% of regional funding, and capital is flowing mainly to larger ecosystems and established founders. Women-led businesses, often earlier-stage and raising smaller amounts, sit outside that flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is where banks, funds and family offices could make a difference. At Woman Banker, we believe several questions deserve attention:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Can lending and guarantee mechanisms fill the gap where equity is scarce?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Can institutions dedicate part of their allocations to women-led businesses at growth stage, where the ticket-size gap is widest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Can investment committees and decision-making teams reflect the diversity of the founders they finance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will keep following these questions across Africa, the GCC and MENA, and we welcome the perspectives of our readers and network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Wamda, “MENA startups raise $1.7 billion in H1 2026 despite regional uncertainty” (July 2026); Wamda, MENA startup funding report for March 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Startups in the Middle East and North Africa raised $1.7 billion across 242 funding rounds in the first half of 2026, according to Wamda. Female-founded companies secured just $2.5 million through 14 transactions, or 0.14% of the total. Male-founded startups captured about 95% of capital, raising roughly $1.6 billion across 213 deals. Mixed-gender founding teams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-banking-news","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2037"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2042,"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions\/2042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womanbanker.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}