How many startups raising in CEE have a woman founder?
About 29% of teams include a woman. Of the CEE founding teams who applied to BADideas in 2026 so far, 29% had at least one woman founder, down from 33% in 2025. Women were 15% of all founders.
The figures
| CEE founding teams | 2025 | 2026 (to date) |
|---|---|---|
| With at least one woman founder | 33% | 29% |
Among CEE founders raising pre-seed, 26% of teams included a woman. In BADideas application data, women are about one founder in 7.
What is changing
| Quarter | CEE teams with a woman founder |
|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | 31% |
| Q3 2025 | 32% |
| Q4 2025 | 35% |
| Q1 2026 | 28% |
| Q2 2026 | 31% |
| Q3 2026 | 28% |
Across CEE
CEE founders who applied in 2025 and 2026 so far, and each country with enough applicants to show. Countries with fewer applicants are still counted in the CEE row.
| Where the founder is based | Teams with a woman founder |
|---|---|
| All of CEE | 31% |
| Baltics | 31% |
| Latvia | 29% |
| Estonia | 32% |
| Lithuania | 33% |
| Poland | 33% |
| Ukraine | 38% |
| Romania | 26% |
| Czechia | 26% |
Teams with a woman founder: highest in Ukraine (38%), lowest in Czechia (26%).
What it means for you
- Mixed teams are common. About one in three teams raising in CEE include a woman founder.
- Investors back teams, not demographics. What they check is whether the team can build and sell.
- Put every founder on the team slide. Name, role and what each has built or sold before; a team slide that shows only the CEO hides half the case.
- Look for funds and programmes that back women founders. Some focus on them, and they add to the investors you would pitch anyway.
Also answers
What share of founders in CEE are women?
15% of the founders on CEE teams that applied in 2026 so far.
How we measured it
- Source: applications founders sent to BADideas, enriched with publicly available information where applicable.
- Limits: these are CEE only and early-stage companies.
- On this page: Gender is taken from how the deck refers to each founder, and where it does not say, from the founder's name and photo. Founders whose gender cannot be told are left out. Most genders are inferred rather than stated, so treat the shares as estimates.
- Updated: 27 September 2026.
BADideas.fund, "How many startups raising in CEE have a woman founder?", updated 27 September 2026. https://badideas.fund/answers/women-founders-cee
Read next
- How many founding teams raising in CEE have a technical founder?
- What backgrounds do founders raising in CEE have?
- How common are solo founders raising in CEE, and how do they pitch?
Who we are
We are a pre-seed and seed fund for founders in Central and Eastern Europe. We have built and sold companies ourselves, and since 2022 we have backed more than 40.
We back founders who see something about their market that others do not see yet. They want to change how a whole industry works, start with something small, and learn fast.
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