During the previous spring season, venture capitalist Leslie Feinzaig sought to gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of what it truly means to build and scale a startup as a woman in today’s entrepreneurial landscape. Driven by curiosity and the desire to shed light on the lived experiences of female founders, she launched a comprehensive survey designed to capture the contemporary realities of women navigating the startup ecosystem. Her questions focused on their principal challenges, the coping strategies they employ to overcome systemic and personal obstacles, and the larger aspirations shaping their entrepreneurial journeys. Interestingly, she did not initially include any direct inquiries regarding sexual harassment from investors—a deliberate omission that underscored her belief that such issues had largely diminished. Yet despite this absence, a number of women chose to share those personal and distressing experiences anyway, revealing how persistent and invasive the problem remains.
In response to an open-ended question about their fundraising experiences, one founder living and working in San Francisco recounted with striking candor that nearly every straight male investor she encountered during her capital-raising efforts had propositioned her for sex. Another participant in the survey recalled a disturbing moment when an investor trivialized her professional goals by asking whether she would prefer receiving one million dollars or having a man instead, a question that framed financial opportunity as a trade-off for personal dignity. A third entrepreneur explained that she had resorted to wearing a fake wedding ring during investor meetings, not as a fashion statement, but as a defensive measure intended to discourage inappropriate advances. These unsettling accounts reflected just a portion of the narratives Feinzaig collected.
The survey itself—an online form available from February through March—garnered 180 responses from early-stage female founders across North America. Among these, eight women detailed situations that they characterized as harassment, unwanted flirtation, or outright demeaning behavior from potential investors encountered during the funding process. Alarmingly, three of those eight said they had been explicitly propositioned for sex. One of the respondents, Meltem Ballan, an entrepreneur leading an artificial intelligence infrastructure startup, recounted how one potential investor insulted her appearance by saying she was not as attractive as her LinkedIn photograph suggested and advised her to wear makeup in future meetings. The comment left her both humiliated and stunned, exemplifying the type of everyday gendered behavior that continues to pervade investor-founder interactions.
Feinzaig published a detailed report under her organization, the Female Founders Alliance—an initiative within her venture fund, Graham & Walker—where she compiled anonymous remarks from the survey. The findings painted a vivid portrait of a hypercompetitive fundraising climate tainted by predatory conduct, power imbalances, and the consistent objectification of women. One participant confessed that she now limits meetings exclusively to male investors who have a demonstrable track record in her specific industry sector. As she explained, she lacks both the emotional capacity and logistical bandwidth to enter meetings with optimism only to discover the investor’s true motive was personal interest rather than professional opportunity.
In disseminating her survey, Feinzaig strategically shared the link through newsletters, online communities, and social media hubs where female entrepreneurs often exchange resources and advice. Afterward, she supplied Business Insider with anonymized comments, some of which contained explicit allegations of harassment. Two founders consented to be quoted publicly, though the identities of the remaining respondents were not independently verified by the publication. One of these women, founder Lisa Hillyard, expressed heartbreak over how many capable and innovative women are striving to launch ventures with transformative potential yet find themselves undermined at every stage by venture capitalists who, as she put it, treat them with profound disrespect throughout the process.
Upon reflecting on the survey’s unexpected revelations, Feinzaig admitted she regretted not including a direct question about harassment. Her rationale at the time was based on a belief that the venture capital industry had purged the most egregious forms of misconduct in the post–#MeToo era. She confessed that she had assumed such behavior had already been “handled,” mistakenly believing it was no longer part of the daily experience of female founders. However, the stories she received directly contradicted that assumption.
Hillyard, who co-founded MILO Human Care, which develops “regenerative personal care” products, also shared a disturbing personal experience. During a fundraising effort, a potential investor told her that if she ever wanted to keep something confidential between them, he would refrain from telling his wife. The exchange left her questioning whether any male founder would ever be subjected to such an overtly inappropriate remark. The episode reinforced her suspicion that gender bias—and, at times, outright sexualization—remains embedded in certain corners of the venture ecosystem.
These accounts echo narratives that rocked Silicon Valley years earlier. Nearly eight years ago, engineer Susan Fowler’s public disclosure of harassment at Uber catalyzed a wave of women sharing parallel stories of exploitation and retaliation in the tech industry. Some female founders at the time identified abusers by name, prompting investigations and resignations. Following these revelations, several companies, including major tech firms like Microsoft, Google, Uber, and Facebook, implemented policy reforms prohibiting the mandatory use of private arbitration in sexual harassment cases. The U.S. Congress eventually codified that shift by passing legislation in 2022 that outlawed forced arbitration in both sexual harassment and assault cases. On paper, progress appeared visible; yet, Feinzaig’s contemporary survey suggests that the old dynamics persist, resurfacing whenever women founders sit across from investors who hold disproportionate power over their financial futures.
At the core of this issue lies a structural imbalance: start-up founders desperately seeking capital must appeal to those who control vast sums of money. For women already disadvantaged by inequitable funding patterns, this imbalance is magnified. Data from PitchBook indicates that approximately 83% of key decision-makers at venture firms managing at least $50 million in assets are men. While total capital flowing into female-led startups reached an impressive $39 billion in 2024—a 27% increase from the previous year—the total number of deals declined by 13%, falling to 3,148 transactions. Consequently, women’s share of overall deals dropped to just above 25%, marking its lowest point since 2018.
Simultaneously, the culture of the tech sector has undergone yet another shift, this time toward a renewed sense of masculine bravado. High-profile figures such as Mark Zuckerberg publicly tout “masculine energy” as essential to corporate innovation while displaying combat-sport prowess in jiu-jitsu tournaments. Elon Musk continues to make crude jokes on social media, reinforcing performative alpha behavior. The once-celebrated archetype of the awkward but cerebral genius has been replaced by a hyperconfident, gym-sculpted technocrat who blends aggression with strategic image management. According to Feinzaig, this cultural climate may be providing a kind of “air cover” that enables or excuses regressive, discriminatory conduct.
Her findings are far from isolated. In 2023, the nonprofit Women Who Tech conducted a global, anonymous survey involving over 930 respondents across the technology sector—including founders, employees, and investors. Shockingly, half of the female founders reported having experienced harassment, with half of those describing sexual propositions and roughly 60% reporting unwanted physical contact. These results, considered alongside Feinzaig’s data, raise an alarming question: if eight women spontaneously volunteered accounts of harassment in a survey that never explicitly asked about it, how many more endured similar incidents in silence?
Meltem Ballan, who continues to seek funding amid what she describes as “one of the hardest environments” for female founders, exemplifies this struggle. Last year, after ending a video call with a potential investor who criticized her appearance and suggested she wear makeup, she burst into tears—a moment that underscored how frequently professionalism collides with misogyny. Later that same year, an intoxicated investor she had only recently met called her late at night, inviting her to discuss an “investment opportunity” in his hotel room. She immediately severed all contact. Despite such demoralizing experiences, Ballan persists in pursuing funding. Statistical evidence supports her perception of systemic inequality: PitchBook’s 2024 report found that startups with exclusively female founding teams received only 1.9% of total venture dollars and accounted for just 6.5% of completed deals. “There is obviously gender discrimination,” she stated emphatically.
Fundraising meetings themselves often unfold within informal or semi-private contexts—Zoom calls, lunches, dinners, or trips—where professional boundaries can easily blur. The familiarity of these circumstances, combined with the inherent power differential, can lead to interactions that feel personal rather than professional. One respondent to Feinzaig’s survey lamented that although founders strive to maintain professional decorum, women must strategically curate their appearances to counteract bias. “It’s not a date,” she emphasized, explaining that dressing casually in a hoodie and minimal makeup might signal unprofessionalism in a way that male founders do not have to contend with. Another participant cited the constant presence of implicit bias, sexual innuendo, and even crude euphemisms woven into what were supposed to be business discussions. She now avoids pitching to funds lacking female partners, viewing their absence as an immediate red flag.
Lisa Hillyard’s own fundraising experiences reinforced this cautionary stance. After relocating from Germany to Canada, she believed she had finally found an investor who not only supported women-led startups but also shared her company’s vision. Yet, after an extended dinner meeting at an upscale Italian restaurant, the investor insisted on accompanying her home—a gesture she found disquieting but felt compelled to accept to preserve professional goodwill. Days later, over lunch at a luxury hotel, he boasted about his supposed popularity with European female founders and escalated his suggestive comments by implying he could keep secrets from his wife. Hillyard was left wondering whether this type of statement would ever be made to a male counterpart.
Ultimately, Hillyard and her cofounder decided to walk away from the partnership. When she personally confronted the investor to tell him his remarks were inappropriate and made her uncomfortable, he blocked her on social media. The incident prompted her team to reject the traditional venture capital model altogether, opting instead for community-based funding and forming an equity agreement with a Toronto-based brand agency. Reflecting on her ordeal, Hillyard described profound feelings of violation and disappointment. She found it ironic that while creating a business aimed at empowering women, she herself became the target of the very behavior her company sought to counteract. Her story, like so many others, demonstrates the still-precarious landscape that women founders must traverse simply to secure equitable access to capital.
Feinzaig’s research, along with corroborating data from other studies, underscores a painful incongruity: even as women drive innovation and leadership in emerging industries, many continue to face harassment and exclusion within systems that purport to prize merit and vision. Until the startup community truly commits to dismantling these entrenched patterns—through accountability, transparency, and structural reform—the stories shared by founders like Ballan and Hillyard will remain distressingly common, a testament to both the resilience of women entrepreneurs and the persistence of injustice within the corridors of venture capital.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/female-founders-report-sexual-harassment-while-seeking-vc-funding-2025-10
