Since 2008, biopharma companies founded by women have raised $64.1 billion through 3,375 venture capital deals, according to a recent analysis by PitchBook. The report indicates that in 2025 alone, female-founded companies across all sectors attracted $103.7 billion in investment over 2,528 deals. Focusing on the biopharma sector, women-founded firms secured $4.8 billion from 203 deals so far this year.
This amount is significantly lower than the peak of 2021 when $12.7 billion was invested across 412 transactions for female-founded biopharmas. The data shows that after the surge seen during the pandemic years, investments have declined and are now stabilizing.
The majority of these investments have been concentrated in two major U.S. biotech hubs: Boston-Cambridge and San Francisco-Oakland. Boston-Cambridge accounted for $24.4 billion from 759 deals while San Francisco-Oakland saw $16.3 billion through 618 deals.
Venture capital rounds were evenly split among early-stage, late-stage, and angel investments. Companies founded exclusively by women received $7.7 billion from 509 deals; those co-founded by both women and men raised $56.4 billion over 2,866 deals.
Among the top five largest venture capital rounds since 2008:
EQRx raised the largest single round with a $570 million Series B in January 2021 from six founders including Melanie Nallicheri, Susan Hager, and Sandra Horning. After raising nearly $2 billion in three years and going public via a SPAC merger in August 2021 (raising another $1.8 billion), EQRx struggled with clinical setbacks and ultimately sold itself to Revolution Medicines in August 2023.
Neumora’s Series A round brought in $500 million and positioned it as one of the biggest fundraises of its year—though not the largest overall for that period due to increased sector-wide investment following COVID-19 vaccine successes at the end of 2020. Neumora has since faced clinical challenges but remains active with upcoming trial results expected soon.
Lyell Immunopharma completed a significant Series C raise of $493 million just before pandemic-era funding surges began influencing biotech financing trends more broadly. Lyell has pursued next-generation CAR T cell therapies for cancer but experienced mixed results and changes to its asset portfolio over recent years.
Laronde drew attention with a $440 million Series B following its launch as an RNA medicines company backed by Flagship Pioneering; however, questions about data integrity led to restructuring within Flagship’s portfolio.
BioNTech secured a notable late-stage round worth $425 million ahead of developing one of two widely used COVID-19 vaccines alongside Pfizer—a deal involving substantial investment from Pfizer Ventures and Sanofi helped position BioNTech at the forefront during the pandemic response.
According to Lori Ellis, Head of Insights at BioSpace: "BioSpace looks back at the top five rounds since 2008 and where the companies are today."
