The latest figures for the U.K. reveal that successful small business finance applications fell in 2022, resulting in more entrepreneurs looking to crowdfunding schemes to get the capital they need. This comes at a time of increased economic hardship and bleak business outlook.
While the average U.K. boardroom of established businesses is dominated by men, the firm money.co.uk has assessed Kickstarter statistics to discover if there is a similar gender gap in successful crowdfunding.
This analysis has found that female-led Kickstarters are 16 percent more likely to succeed in hitting their funding target than male-led Kickstarters. This leads to the finding that 63 percent of female-led ventures are successful compared to 58 percent of male-led ventures.
Despite this success, at funding figures indicate that male-led campaigns receive more funding than female-led overall. The average successful male-led campaign gets £11,686 funding compared to the average female-led campaign which gets £4,825. While female funding added up to £11,888,505 in the U.K. over the past five years, male funding added up to more than four times as much: £47,165,766.
Lucinda O’Brien, from money.co.uk, tells Digital Journal: “Women leading Kickstarter campaigns are having great success, which shows that people are believing in their businesses and getting behind them. However, this level of support should be reflected in all areas of business; from more funding to having a seat in the boardroom. These stats show there is still work to be done to close the gender gap and we need to ensure women have the capital they need to make their business a success.”
The table below shows the category breakdown for all successful Kickstarter campaigns over the past five years:
| Category | % of successful kickstarters | Category | % of successful female-run kickstarters | Category | % of successful male-run kickstarters |
| Tabletop Games | 15.99% | Illustration | 12.01% | Tabletop Games | 16.92% |
| Product Design | 6.91% | Art | 7.91% | Comic Books | 6.91% |
| Illustration | 5.75% | Accessories | 7.83% | Product Design | 5.67% |
| Art | 4.35% | Shorts | 5.28% | Graphic Novels | 3.84% |
| Accessories | 4.21% | Children’s Books | 4.50% | Shorts | 3.52% |
| Comic Books | 4.18% | Product Design | 3.86% | Comics | 2.75% |
| Shorts | 3.16% | Tabletop Games | 2.84% | Music | 2.53% |
| Music | 2.40% | Crafts | 2.27% | Illustration | 2.50% |
| Graphic Novels | 2.30% | Drama | 2.15% | Comedy | 2.50% |
| Children’s Books | 2.14% | Music | 2.07% | Drama | 2.43% |
Tabletop games is the most successful category overall, followed by product design. For female run kickstarters, Illustration, Art and Accessories are the top 3 most successful campaigns, whereas for males it’s Tabletop Games, Comic books, and Product design.
