Since day one, AWS has been dedicated to supporting startups so that they can innovate, compete and grow in the UK and beyond with the Cloud. AWS is committed to levelling the playing field for all startups, working to enable founders to pursue their ideas and build innovative solutions on the Cloud— regardless of their background.

The global research reveals tech companies with at least one female founder has grown almost from £75.1 million in 2013 to £1.85 billion in 2022. Similarly, the number of these deals has grown from 103 to 850 in the same period.

However, despite this, startup tech companies with at least one woman founder are still underrepresented in terms of private funding, receiving just 8.96% of equity investment made into high-growth technology businesses in the UK.

This report shines a light on the UK’s funding landscape – with a particular focus on women tech founders and other underrepresented entrepreneurs – to show where progress is being made and highlight opportunities to enhance and support diversity further.

The report also reveals opportunities to further support the UK startup community. Although the number of deals for companies with women founders has grown, 92.7% of deals for these companies occur at the seed or venture stage, where investment rounds tend to be smaller on average.

Tanuja Randery, EMEA Managing Director, Amazon Web Services said: “We are pleased to sponsor the ‘Gender and diversity in UK tech: Women founders and other underrepresented entrepreneurs’ report from Beauhurst, which is helping to shine a light on the UK’s funding landscape, show where progress is being made, and highlight where there might be opportunities to enhance and support diversity further.

“Since day one, Amazon Web Services has been dedicated to supporting startups so that they can innovate, compete, and grow in the UK and beyond with the cloud. We are proud that anyone, anywhere, whether they are in a high-rise office or at their kitchen table, can access the same technologies and build companies that will make a positive impact on the world.

“We are committed to initiatives which help to level the playing field for startups, and the programmes we have built are already enabling underrepresented founders to thrive. For example, the AWS Activate programme has helped hundreds of thousands of early-stage startups including underrepresented founders of UK companies like Unitary, Streetbees, and Hertility.”

AWS is helping as many founders as possible to gain access to advantages that the Cloud can provide, so they can scale fast and bring new ideas to market. The programmes it has built are already enabling underrepresented founders to thrive. These include AWS Reach, designed to discover, engage and acquire startups founded by underserved groups early.

Access the full report here.