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UK named top country in Europe for female business owners

Female founders in the US are more than 16 times better-funded than in the UK. Photo: Getty
Female founders in the US are more than 16 times better-funded than in the UK. Photo: Getty

The UK has seized the crown as the top country in Europe for female business owners, and has come in at fourth place on a worldwide scale.

That’s according to a new study by digital PR agency JBH, which analysed data from Crunchbase, Mastercard, Tide and Linkedin to determine where in the world was best for women to start their businesses.

The report scored each country out of 10 on a range of factors including the percentage of women business owners, amount of funding and number of female founders.

Watch: How Ann Summers' CEO overcame trauma and adversity to build her retail empire

It found that just 2% of the global top 100 companies have female founders, with women entrepreneurs being vastly outnumbered by their male counterparts.

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The US was the best place in the world for female business owners, due to a high percentage of women business owners and lucrative amounts of funding.

Female founders in the US are more than 16 times better-funded than in the UK.

READ MORE: Why are female entrepreneurs still missing out on funding?

Mainland China and Uganda came in ahead of the UK in second and third place. Uganda holds the highest percentage of female businesses owners, with 38.2%, closely followed by the US with 35.1%.

Data showed that in the UK, English female founders received almost five times the funding as Scotland, while London was crowned the best UK city for female-owned startups.

Manchester was in top five UK destinations for female entrepreneurs, receiving 114% more in funding than Newcastle.

Making up the rest of the top 10 countries in the world was Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Russia, Spain and Canada.

The report scored each country out of 10 on a range of factors including the percentage of women business owners, amount of funding and number of female founders. Chart: Mastercard, Crunchbase
The report scored each country out of 10 on a range of factors including the percentage of women business owners, amount of funding and number of female founders. Chart: Mastercard, Crunchbase

Finance was the best-funded industry for female entrepreneurs, with over £16bn (£22bn) funding from one company alone. Second place went to the real estate sector with over £14bn funding also from a lone company.

This was followed by fintech, biotech and health, and e-commerce.

Jane Hunt, co-founder at JBH, said: “Being a female founder brings setbacks and challenges that male founders don’t have to experience. I've had to work harder than male colleagues to earn respect as a company founder and boss, but also as an expert throughout my career in marketing and PR.

“It’s fantastic to see other female founders succeeding and that there's more support for women to start businesses today, especially in traditionally male-dominated industries.”

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