Historically speaking, funding for female founders has been pretty paltry in the venture capital (VC) world. From 2011 to 2020, the amount of VC money going to female-only-founded startups never went above $4 billion. In 2020 — despite U.S. startups raising a record $143 billion — funding to venture-backed companies founded solely by female entrepreneurs dropped 22%. Only about $3.5 billion of VC money went to those female founders.  In 2021, it seemed to get better.