On Saturday 27 September, in a unified demonstration of drive, strength and empowerment, the Red Roses battled hard on Home Turf to win the Women’s Rugby World Cup.
81,855 fans filled Twickenham Stadium to watch the game: the largest crowd for any Women’s rugby match and the second largest crowd for any World Cup final ever. Outside of the stadium, the match drew a UK-wide TV audience of 5.8 million viewers, making it the most-watched rugby match in the UK of the year.
This match, and the Red Roses’ success, was the defining culmination of a decade of strategic and consistent investment into the Women’s game.
10 years ago, after the Red Roses won the Women’s Rugby World Cup for the second time (defeating Canada 21-9 in the 2014 final), the Rugby Football Union (RFU) made the pro-active decision to test demand for, and grow, Women’s rugby. Uncertain as to whether there was public appetite to support the Women’s sport, the RFU (amongst other things):
- issued full-time professional contracts to the England team;
- hosted standalone fixtures at Twickenham to gauge interest; and
- launched the ‘Every-Rose’ strategy, an initiative to accelerate the growth of the Women’s and girls’ game.
10 years on, after completely selling out Twickenham stadium five weeks in advance of kick-off, the 2025 World Cup final cemented Women’s rugby as a mainstream, commercially viable sport in the UK.
Listening to the commentary and watching the success of the RFU’s decision to invest in the Women’s game crystallise during the World Cup final caused me to reflect on the strategic decisions that have been made over the years to promote and accelerate Women in business.
Are there any parallels to be drawn? Lessons to be learnt?
In the same summer as the Red Roses’ win, the UK Government showed a genuine and strategic commitment to supporting Women in business by announcing a £500 million investment fund to boost opportunities for underrepresented entrepreneurs, including Women. From 2026, £400 million (of the total £500 million announced) is to be channelled through the British Business Bank into the hands of diverse and emerging fund managers across the UK. The aim of the initiative is, at its core, to make it easier for new entrants, particularly those from underrepresented groups, to break into venture capital.
The investment package includes:
- backing more diverse fund managers and empowering them to accelerate investment into early-stage businesses with high growth potential;
- investing in more micro funds (£10 to £15m) to enable more investors to take the step on to the venture capital ladder; and
- backing partners, such as venture capital funds, to invest smaller amounts in talented individuals to build a track record and to provide training. This is intended to give individuals without personal wealth or connections the opportunity to become investors.
Given that research shows that Women are twice as likely to make investments into Women-led businesses[1] and Women are, within the UK’s venture capital sector, hugely underrepresented, this initiative and the delivery of its aims should, without a doubt, see money being channelled through Female-led funds into Female-powered businesses.
In addition to the £400m package to support diverse and emerging fund managers, a further £50m has been directly allocated to Female-led funds in support of the Invest in Women Taskforce (taking the British Business Bank’s total commitment to the Taskforce to £100m).
The Invest in Women Taskforce was launched in 2024 to address the persistent gender funding gap in entrepreneurship and investment; a gap that was first brought to the forefront on International Women’s Day in 2019 with the publication of the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship.
In her 2019 Review, Alison Rose identified, amongst a number of other things, a perceived bias within the UK venture finance community with only 13% of senior people on UK investment teams being Female (with almost half having no Women at all) and less than 1% of UK venture funding going to all female-led teams. It is disconcerting that 6 years on these figures are not improving; research continues to show that less than 2p in every £1 of venture capital funding in the UK goes to Female-founded businesses[2] and that 11% of venture capital committee members are Women.
Will Women in business have a defining moment that is comparable to the Women’s World Cup final? And, if so, when?
Perhaps the recent establishment of the Invest in Women Taskforce by the UK Government is analogous to the RFU’s conscientious and strategic choice to invest in Women’s rugby a decade ago.
In its first year alone:
- the Taskforce has exceeded its target to secure more than £250 million in funding for Female entrepreneurs;
- the funding secured will be distributed through the Taskforce’s partners and its own “Women backing Women” Fund of Funds;
- it has the backing of the Chancellor; and
- it continually raises awareness of gender disparity in capital allocation.
Is this important? And, if so, why?
The advancement of Female investors and Female entrepreneurs isn’t a ‘nice to have’ or the ‘right thing to do’ (although, it is the right thing to do), it makes financial sense: up to £250 billion of new value can be added to the UK economy if Women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as men[3]; Women-led businesses deliver 35% higher returns than their male counterparts[4]; and Female-founded companies deliver twice as much revenue per pound[5].
In the wake of the Red Roses’ win (and the Lionesses before that), this feels absolutely like the right time to push for gender equality in business and maybe, in another ten years’ time, the UK will be heralded as “world leading” for Women in business and “setting a massive standard for the rest of the world”[6].
[1] Bernstein Report: From Seed to Success: Broader Backing for Women Entrepreneurs.
[2] 1.8% of all equity investment in the first half of 2024 went to all female founded businesses (a drop from 2.5% in 2023)
[3]Rose Review.
[4] Female Entrepreneurship Roundtable at Tramshed Tech in Wales (https://www.uktech.news/diversity/woman-led-businesses-deliver-higher-returns-with-a-fraction-of-support-research-shows-20250328)
[5] Lifted (https://liftedventures.co.uk/what-are-the-investment-benefits-of-backing-female-founded-businesses-in-the-uk/
[6] To quote Black Ferns’ Ruahei Demant’s comments after the Women’s Rugby World Cup final.
