How many CEE startups have a woman founder?
29% of teams include a woman founder. 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. We show each country with enough applicants; smaller countries count only 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 check 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.
Related questions
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
- 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 CEE startups have a woman founder?", updated 27 September 2026. https://badideas.fund/answers/women-founders-cee
Read next
- How many CEE teams have a technical founder?
- What backgrounds do CEE founders have?
- How big are CEE teams when they raise?
- Do CEE founders study abroad first?
- How common are solo founders in CEE?
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, and they start small.
Good founders rarely fail on the idea or the product. They fail on selling it. We give your company hands-on help from go-to-market operators who grew Zendesk, Square and Scale AI.