The Invest in Women Taskforce, a UK initiative backed by His Majesty’s Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade, has announced that more than £115 million in capital has now been deployed through its funding pool across 22 deals, with additional transactions in the pipeline. The milestone marks the transition of the Taskforce’s work from capital-raising to active deployment into women-led and mixed fund managers and businesses.
The deployments have been made by BGF and Bootstrap 4F — the firm that manages the Women Backing Women Fund of Funds — into businesses and fund managers meeting the Taskforce’s gender diversity and commercial returns criteria. Bootstrap 4F, which held a landmark £130 million first close in March 2026, has committed capital to Evertrue Capital I LP, Seedcamp VII LP, and Seedcamp Nation II LP, backing women-led and gender-balanced investment teams that will in turn invest in high-growth businesses.
The Taskforce launched two years ago with a target of convening £250 million in capital commitments. It has since exceeded that goal more than twofold, assembling £635 million in total commitments from institutional investor partners. The £115 million deployment figure represents the portion of that committed capital that has moved from pledge to active investment in businesses and funds.
The Taskforce’s stated mission is to make the UK the best place in the world for women entrepreneurs by addressing a structural gap in the flow of capital to women-led businesses — a gap its co-chairs frame in commercial rather than purely social terms.
KEY QUOTES:
“When we launched the Invest in Women Taskforce, our ambition was not simply to raise awareness of the funding gap, but to change the system that created it. Surpassing £100 million in deployment shows that this is no longer a conversation about intent; it is proof that capital is actively reaching women investors and founders. The focus now is ensuring this momentum continues through deployment, accountability and long-term structural change, so that backing women entrepreneurs becomes a permanent feature of the investment landscape rather than an exception to it.”
Hannah Bernard CBE, Co-Chair, Invest in Women Taskforce
“For too long, the investment industry has overlooked one of the biggest commercial opportunities in the market. This has never been about favouring women; it is about ensuring the industry does not miss out on exceptional businesses and strong returns. The capital is now flowing, and the commercial case has never been clearer: back women or miss out on enormous return potential for investors and the UK economy as a whole.”
Debbie Wosskow CBE, Co-Chair, Invest in Women Taskforce
