2.7% of $1.37 billion raised in H1: “female founders should become more investable” – OuiLife CEO, Dinma Obidiebube says

While female founders can’t tell investors where to put their money, they could, however, control how investable their businesses become. This was the position of Dinma Obidiebube, Founder and CEO of beauty-tech company OuiLife, in a chat with Technext.

This follows a report that only 2.7 per cent of the total $1.37 billion funding by African startups in the first half of 2026 was raised by female founders.

Discussing whether women founders can reverse the trend, Dinma explained that female founders should strive for investability, which means meeting various standards:

“Women founders cannot solve this challenge alone because investment decisions ultimately rest with investors. However, they can control how investable they become. That means building companies with strong governance, measurable traction, clear financial discipline and products that solve real market problems.”

“The stronger the fundamentals, the stronger the investment case,” she added.

Dinma added that female founders need to think beyond local markets from the outset, noting that businesses that demonstrate scalability, strong execution and global relevance naturally become more attractive to investors.

Why do venture capitalists overlook female founders?

The portion of African total venture funding raised by female founders has declined significantly and consistently in recent years.

In 2025, only 0.9 per cent of the total $3.2 billion VC funding on the continent went to women-led startups. While the H1 2026 percentage points at an overall improvement, even higher than the global average of two per cent, under three per cent is still incredibly low.

Similar read: African female founders raised 0.9% of $3.2bn total funding in 2025; lowest in 4 years

Describing the share as “disproportionate”, Dinma explained that venture capitalists often overlook female founders because their businesses are mostly risky:

“Investors often back sectors and founder profiles that have previously generated outsized returns. That can unintentionally reinforce existing funding patterns and make it more difficult for founders operating outside those patterns – including many women to access capital at the same scale,” she explained.

She highlighted the challenge associated with investing in women-dominated sectors such as beauty care. She explained that businesses operating in such sectors are capital-intensive and require significant investment in equipment, facilities, compliance and inventory long before they can scale.

This makes fundraising more difficult regardless of gender.

“When you combine that with the historical underrepresentation of women in venture funding, the challenge becomes even greater,” she said.

Some industry stakeholders have called for funds dedicated exclusively to female founders to make more funding available to women founders and bridge the gap. Accordingly, some investors have announced funds exclusive to female founders.

The OuiLife CEO believes that these dedicated funds can play an important role by helping address historical funding imbalances and ensuring more women gain access to early-stage capital.

However, they are largely corrective measures responding to years of underrepresentation rather than evidence that the funding gap has been closed. As such, they should not be viewed as the long-term solution.

“Dedicated funds can help bridge today’s gap, but long-term success depends on building a broader investment culture that recognises quality businesses across different sectors and founder backgrounds. The ultimate goal should be an investment ecosystem where funding decisions are driven by the strength of the business rather than the gender of the founder,” Dinma said.

She argued that while there has been encouraging progress, the objective shouldn’t be to create more programmes for women. It should be to ensure that strong businesses have equal access to capital and are evaluated on their potential to create long-term value, regardless of the founder’s gender.

Putting it all together

The low funding into women-led startups is affecting female founders because access to capital influences how quickly a business can hire, invest in research and development, expand into new markets and compete.

When limited, growth becomes slower and more dependent on the founder’s personal resources or operating cash flow.

But this should not discourage women from building ambitious businesses, Dinma Obidiebube concludes.

“Venture capital is only one source of financing. Many successful companies have been built through customer revenue, strategic partnerships, angel investment, grants and debt financing. For founders, the priority should be building businesses with real demand and strong fundamentals. Capital is an accelerator, not a substitute for a viable business model,” she said.