Breaking barriers: progress and persistence for female entrepreneurs

The UK has made significant strides in supporting entrepreneurship over the past decade, yet the journey towards greater gender parity in business ownership remains incomplete. While women are launching businesses in record numbers and are increasingly prevalent in the UK’s scale-up economy, data shows that female entrepreneurs continue to face structural barriers that can limit access to opportunities, finance, and growth.

According to the Longitudinal Small Business Survey 2024, around 14% of SME employers were women-led, highlighting the fact that female entrepreneurs remain underrepresented across the UK’s small business landscape. While the number reflects the contribution women are already making to the economy, it also underlines the significant untapped potential that exists if more women are empowered and supported to start and grow businesses.

Access to finance remains one of the most persistent challenges. For many founders, securing external funding is a critical step in turning an ambitious idea into a sustainable business. Data reveals that women continue to face greater adversity when it comes to raising funding, with loans approved for female business owners nearly one third less than for their male counterparts; whereas in London and Wales, women are the recipients of around 40% of all Start Up Loans provided into each region – significantly higher than the proportion of start-ups led by women, which currently stands at around 14%.

These figures highlight the important role Start Up Loans plays in helping more women access the finance and support they need to start and grow their businesses.

Start Up Loans has always had a mission to support female business owners and we are delighted to have reached two major milestones that demonstrate the impact. We have now provided over £100 million in lending to female entrepreneurs based in London, while at the same time providing more than £20 million in lending to female entrepreneurs in Wales.

The London £100m milestone contains a lot of other encouraging news when it comes to how Start Up Loans can support underrepresented groups. For example, of the almost 11,000 Start Up Loans provided to female Londoners, 48% have been delivered to entrepreneurs from ethnic minority groups, while 24% of loan recipients aged 18-24 were categorised as not in employment, education or training (NEET) before they started their business.

Yandis Ying from Dot Dot Tea, our London Start Up Loans Ambassador, summed it up well when she said: “The Start Up Loans programme gave us the confidence and early funding to build Dot Dot Bubble Tea into the UK’s first dedicated bubble tea brewery. Today, we are stocked by retailers including Harrods, Selfridges, Costco, Planet Organic, Virgin Atlantic, and the University of Cambridge. Access to finance at the right stage can make a transformational difference for ambitious founders, particularly female entrepreneurs.”

These milestones in London and Wales, just to give two recent examples, tell an encouraging story of progress, but behind every funding milestone is an individual entrepreneur with their own experience of building a business, overcoming barriers, and pursuing growth. To better understand the realities facing women in business today, we spoke to a female founder about her journey and the difference a Start Up Loan made.

Anna Lloyd is the founder of Bwblin, a vegan, organic and carbon-neutral fermented food brand specialising in small-batch sauerkraut, kimchi, and miso – all handmade using locally sourced ingredients and seasonal British produce.

Anna said: “I can only speak from my own experience, but I have found accessing finance difficult. At times, I have felt like my business or what I am trying to build has not been taken completely seriously. I know male founders in the food and drink space who have not experienced the same difficulties with access to funding, whereas the Start Up Loan was the first and only one I was successful with.”

She added: “Start Up Loans saw the research, understood the market, and believed there was an opportunity there. They believed in me and my business at a point when I really needed someone to and that confidence has been just as valuable as the funding itself.”

What is also clear from talking to female founders is the importance of networks. Becky Chalmers from The Reset Rooms said: “The founders of The Gut Stuff and several other female-founded companies were generous with their advice and experience, which was invaluable during the early stages.”

We also know Yandis and Dot Dot Tea benefited from support from Buy Woman Built, a community and platform for female business owners to display their products.

As we push beyond the £100m of Start Up Loans finance to London-based female entrepreneurs we still know there is more to be done. From an equality perspective yes, but also from an economic one. Creating the opportunities, the support, and the conditions for women to set up viable businesses is essential. At Start Up Loans we are absolutely committed to playing our part and working with our partners to make change happen.

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