A major share of ladies nonetheless lack a transparent path to investing in enterprise capital and confidence about non-public markets general, in keeping with Girls, Wealth and the Capital Continuuma 2026 report from non-profit How Girls Lead and funding platform How Girls Make investments.
The web survey, which included 315 girls who met both certified purchaser or accredited investor necessities, discovered that whereas as much as 94% have already made allocations to non-public markets, 63% say they want steerage or are relying fully on their monetary advisors to make such investments for them. On the identical time, a majority—67%—plan to speculate $25,000 to $49,000 in enterprise funds in 2026.
The survey discovered that 77% of respondents make investments with a value-based lens. One other 58% make investments with a gender-based lens with pursuits together with girls’s well being, healthcare supply and monetary innovation, amongst others.
Nonetheless, virtually half (44%) of respondents mentioned they don’t have a transparent path for investing in enterprise capital.
“This can be a group of ladies who’re in C-suite jobs or within the company boardroom. The No. 1 factor is that these girls are tremendous busy. They’re good, they may take dangers, however they don’t need to be irresponsible,” mentioned Julie Castro Abrams, CEO of How Girls Lead and managing associate at How Girls Make investments. “So, what they’re in search of is one thing the place there are usually not a number of steps to undergo and the place they will take the primary two steps. So, make it tremendous easy and simple.”
In accordance with Castro Abrams, about 80% of the ladies in her community work with a monetary advisor, however that doesn’t imply they belief their advisor to make good non-public market funding selections for them. She cited a 2025 RFI International report that discovered 19% of female-only households would change monetary advisors attributable to poor monetary recommendation, in comparison with 13% of common U.S. households. She famous that the ladies traders she works with are additionally in search of one thing past simply monetary outcomes when allocating their cash.
“The company girls leaders that I do know need one thing that’s aligned with their values, in order that is likely to be one thing like an ESG mutual fund or one thing that prioritizes girls,” Castro Abrams mentioned. “So, they’re making an attempt to align their investments, however then they’re additionally making an attempt to get some energy and affect from it. Any funding that provides them sure entry or cache, that helps them with their board profession, appears to be a precedence. For instance, investing in enterprise is a little bit of a key to sure golf equipment virtually, so it’s bought extra advantages than simply the monetary and simply the values alignment.”
Immediately, nonetheless, girls traders usually lack the boldness to entry non-public market investments, the report discovered. Simply 19% described themselves as “very” or “extraordinarily assured” and make selections on their very own for personal market investments. Near 1 / 4 (24%) mentioned they had been in no way assured and rely absolutely on their monetary advisor. One other 39% described themselves as “considerably assured” whereas they nonetheless sought further steerage. Those that described themselves as “assured”—18%—mentioned they make funding selections independently, however nonetheless search outdoors steerage.
Virtually 1 / 4 (22%) by no means invested in non-public property, whereas 27% have made just one or two allocations. Those that have invested in non-public markets tended to remain conservative—27% allotted from 1% to five% of their general portfolio to such property.
1 / 4 of respondents had $25,000 to $49,000 allotted to ventures of their funding portfolio, whereas 14% had allotted between $50,000 and $99,000. Solely 3% had over $250,000 allotted to enterprise capital.
The survey was carried out on-line and included 315 individuals from throughout the How Girls Lead group, together with feminine board members, senior executives and girls within the C-suite.
