Economic Intelligence Brief No. 1

Democratized Capital — Women & Minority Founders in Reg CF

How crowdfunding distributes capital to women- and minority-led companies.

$1.01B — to women- and minority-led companies

Summary

When the crowd decides, capital reaches founders that traditional venture capital overlooks. This brief measures the share of U.S. Regulation Crowdfunding capital going to women- and minority-led companies, and how it has grown.

Key findings

$1.01B has gone to women- and minority-led companies — 37% of all Reg CF capital.
Women-led: 20.5% ($561M). Minority-led: 21.7% ($595M). 2,747 funded issuers.
Their combined share rose from ~24% (2016) to 38.6% (2025).
These campaigns reach their target at 72.9% against a 68.5% market rate. A separate CCLEAR report analyzing women-led and minority-led founders separately finds the picture is more complicated than a pooled comparison suggests.
For contrast, all-women teams receive about 2% of traditional venture capital.

Frequently asked questions

What share of Reg CF capital goes to women- and minority-led companies?

37% — about $1.01B across 2,747 funded issuers. Women-led companies account for 20.5% ($561M) and minority-led for 21.7% ($595M).

How does this compare to traditional venture capital?

All-women teams receive about 2% of traditional venture capital. In Reg CF, women- and minority-led campaigns also succeed at a higher rate (72.9% vs 68.5% market-wide).

Is the share rising?

Yes. The combined share has grown from roughly 24% in 2016 to 38.6% in 2025.

Audience

Foundations · DEI & inclusive-growth research

About this brief

Published by CCLEAR.ai. Anchored to public SEC EDGAR filings and hand-verified against a locked data snapshot. CCLEAR is a data publisher, not an investment adviser; figures describe market activity, not investment outcomes or advice.

Democratized Capital — Women & Minority Founders in Reg CF · CCLEAR Research Library · License the data · Commission research

More briefs in the CCLEAR Research Library

Funding America's Industrial Base — Crowdfunding capital flowing to U.S. manufacturing, energy, and clean tech.
The Main Street Barometer — Retail investor sentiment and participation, tracked over a decade.
A Market Comes of Age — A decade of valuation and capital-structure trends.
What's Your Company Worth? — Valuation benchmarks by company age and revenue stage.
Innovation Geography — How startup capital is decentralizing across the country.
Built to Last — Survival rates of crowdfunded companies vs. national baselines.
The $42.5 Billion Engine — The economic output generated by Reg CF companies.
The First Two Weeks — How a campaign's first 14 days predict its final raise.
The CrowdFinance Index — A daily, rules-based index of the crowdfunding market.
The Crowdfunding Genome — America's top-30 startup-crowdfunding ecosystems, ranked.
After the Raise — What happens to companies after they crowdfund.
The Language of the Raise — NLP on 6,800 pitches — the words that move money.
What Capital Costs — The cost and structure of crowdfunding capital by instrument.
Regulation Crowdfunding by Congressional District: A Report Card — A rolling, district-by-district scorecard of Reg CF activity across all 435 U.S. House districts.
Marked Up — How valuations grow when companies crowdfund again, and the paper markup that creates.
The Exit File: Sales, Mergers & Public Listings of U.S. Regulation Crowdfunding Companies — Crowdfunded companies are exiting — $6.1B in sales, mergers and public listings in just fourteen months.
The Intersection Penalty — Why Two Founder-Identity Advantages in Reg CF Do Not Combine — Two founder-identity advantages that are each real on their own do not add up.