Opinion: The Black women founders reshaping Canada’s venture future

Five years after sharing her journey, Amoye Henry sees progress for Black women founders in Canada.

Amoye Henry is an investor, ecosystem catalyst and global consultant backing visionaries and challenging the status quo.

She is the co-founder of Pitch Better, a startup that trains entrepreneurs to build and scale sustainable small businesses.

In 2020, I wrote an article for BetaKit titled “The horrifying truth of being a Black woman founder in Canada.” It revealed a painful truth: across thousands of Canadian venture capital deals, Black women had raised virtually nothing. The piece sparked conversation because it forced the ecosystem to confront a reality many preferred to ignore.

Soon after, I left Canada and immersed myself in the venture ecosystems of the UK and West Africa. I scouted for family offices and funds, supported entrepreneurs, helped design incubators and accelerators, wrote more than a dozen angel cheques, joined syndicates, and raised capital to launch my own fund. What I discovered is that when inclusion is intentional, venture capital transforms. It doesn’t just fund companies; it sparks new life, unlocks opportunity, and builds entire economies.

Returning to Canada’s venture story five years later, I see signs of progress. Fragile, imperfect, incomplete; but progress nonetheless.

The numbers show a shift

Over the past decade, the global picture has begun to change. Between 2014 and 2023, the number of venture capital deals involving female-founded or co-founded companies grew by nearly 60 percent. Yet growth has not meant parity: as of 2023, startups founded exclusively by women still captured only about two percent of global venture dollars, while those with at least one female co-founder secured closer to 21 percent. On the investment side, women represented just under one-fifth of venture capital partners worldwide in 2021; up from only 11 percent two years earlier.

In Canada, the trajectory is equally telling. A CVCA report noted that in 2021, women-led startups accounted for just 4 percent of total VC investment. By the first half of 2024, that number had tripled to 12 percent. The shift is dramatic, though still fragile, reflecting progress in deal flows, but not yet systemic parity.

The gaps remain glaring. But the direction of travel is different. And behind every data point is a founder who refuses to accept invisibility.

Institutions are beginning to respond. The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) has launched multiple initiatives to address these historic gaps. Its Thrive Lab has committed $35 million to co-invest alongside women-led businesses, with a $100-million envelope dedicated to scaling impact over time. Recently, BDC also created a $50-million Thrive ETA initiative to help women acquire or lead established companies. These interventions acknowledge the structural imbalance: while women own just 19 percent of Canadian SMEs, they receive only a fraction of venture investment.

Black entrepreneurship is also being tracked at the national level. BDC’s 2025 analysis shows that in 2023, only 1.3 percent of Black adults in Canada were entrepreneurs, compared to 2.3 percent of the overall population. For Black women, the figure was an even starker 0.7 percent. Yet projections suggest this share will rise: Black entrepreneurs are expected to represent 3.2 percent of Canada’s entrepreneurial base by 2034.

This kind of longitudinal tracking, absent from mainstream datasets just five years ago, is itself an indicator of progress. The gaps remain glaring. But the direction of travel is different. And behind every data point is a founder who refuses to accept invisibility, and whose success is quietly reshaping what is possible.

The founders building what comes next

While data points to incremental progress, real change in the venture ecosystem is best understood through the founders themselves.

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