‘I Don't Invest in Mothers’—8 Female Founders on the Most Outrageous Things Male Investors Ever Said to Them
From being asked about kids and marriage to fending off kisses, here’s what women have to deal with when trying to start a company.
It’s not easy to be an entrepreneur. It takes a certain personality to embrace risk and commit to building something from the ground up.
It’s particularly hard for women, because startups live or die on the amount of money they can raise, and female-founded companies receive only a tiny sliver of all start-up funding: Female-founded companies (without male co-founders) received only 6% of funding in 2024 according to data from PitchBook. When a woman has a man as her co-founder, her funding chances increase but, still only by a small amount—those companies took home just 20% of all start-up funding.
One of the challenges for female founders trying to raise money is that they are often met with outdated assumptions—and sometimes, outright sexist comments.
To better understand what it’s like for female founders in 2025, The Persistent partnered with HearstLab, a venture capital fund that has built a community of over 60 startups which are owned and led by women.
We were curious about how they use AI, the biggest misconceptions about being a founder, and what wakes them up in the middle of the night. We also wanted to know what it’s really like to try to raise money as a woman in the male-dominated VC world. So we put a survey to HearstLab’s entire founder community. Turns out it’s just as bad as we feared.
Here are eight of the most outrageous responses founders were told in a pitch meeting or by an investor. From being asked about kids and marriage to fending off unwanted kisses, these were truly the worst of the worst.
“You will never raise capital with a pink slide! You need to act more like a man to show confidence that my money is safe with you.”
– Barbara Gottardi, founder of Finbridge Global, an AI-powered platform connecting fintech companies and financial institutions
“Are you planning on having kids anytime soon?”
– Lauren Goodell, founder of Zinnia, a sales acceleration platform for account executives
“You are so cute, you remind me of my daughter.”
“Oh this is a fun little idea, let me run this by my wife and see what she thinks”
“You're such a sweetheart, let's see if we can find a way to work with you and help you.”
– Elizabeth Sheils, co-founder of Rock Paper Coin, an event booking and payment platform.
"I don't invest in mothers because I expect my founders to work.”
– Jennifer Henderson, founder of Tilt, a leave of absence management platform.
"To be honest, I'm shocked you've made it this far."
– Jennifer Ryan, founder of Croux, an AI-powered hospitality staffing site.
“Successful CEOs have to travel a lot, so you can’t get pregnant and have children and also be a successful CEO. Why don’t you step down?”
– Elizabeth Zalman, founder of Sandgarden, an AI business solution software company.
"You're too cute to be a techie"
"You look so young, why would people trust you with their money"
"You suffer from lack of grey hair syndrome"—topped with an attempt to kiss me.
– Maria Tanjala, co-founder of FilmChain, a financial transaction company for creative industries.
That I should plan to get a divorce because my husband is my cofounder.
– Tamara Zubatiy, founder of Barometer, AI contextual targeting solution for advertisers.
