All Raise: 14 women were added to US VC firms in senior roles in Q2 2018, the most of any recent quarter, but about 75% of firms still have no female partners
Venture capitalists spent 2018 welcoming women to the fold, but the welcome has been fitful, uneven and, scariest of all, tentative.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Q2 2018 hiring spike sits on a decade-long baseline that All Raise has been documenting: Fortune counted just 5.6% of senior partners at 191 US VC firms as women in 2015, and Axios found only 7% of decision-makers at 227 US firms were women two years later, controlling 4.7% of dollars raised. Fourteen senior hires in a single quarter was the best recent showing against those numbers — yet three-quarters of firms still had no female partner at all.
What makes this quarter notable in hindsight is that it marked an inflection rather than a blip: All Raise later counted 52 women becoming new VC or general partners in 2019, up 37% from 2018's record, and by 2024 reported that ~18% of US VC firms now have at least one female partner — double the 2018 level — with PitchBook crediting female founders with almost 28% of total US deal value in 2023.
First-order effects
- The 14 firms making these senior hires immediately gain female voices in investment decisions, while the roughly 75% of firms with no female partners see their competitive position on talent and founder perception unchanged.
Second-order effects
- All Raise's quarterly tracking turns hiring into a benchmark rivals can be measured against, and the momentum compounds: the 2018 record was followed by 52 new women partners in 2019, pressuring holdout firms as peer firms' partnerships visibly diversify.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, firm-level representation keeps climbing — it doubled to ~18% by 2024 — but the majority of US VC firms still lack a female partner, meaning control of venture dollars shifts far more slowly than headline hiring quarters suggest.
The trend: US venture capital is diversifying its partnerships at a steady but incomplete pace, with All Raise's counts showing firm-level female representation doubling since 2018 even as most firms still have none.