Deep Tech and gender gap in Italy: from talent to leadership, what needs to change

Talking about deep tech often means talking about science becoming business: technologies
born in laboratories – AI, robotics, new materials, space, biotech, cybersecurity, advanced
computing – that require years of R&D, patient capital, and an ecosystem capable of
supporting the leap from prototype to market. In Italy, it is also the terrain where the gender
gap is most visible: where capital is most concentrated and perceived risk is highest, biases
carry the most weight.

The potential is there, however, and it starts long before a startup is founded.
On the educational front, the latest European data paint a more nuanced picture than often
described: in Italy, the share of female students enrolled in tertiary STEM programmes stands
at almost 37% (2023), and among STEM graduates the female share reaches 41%. These
figures do not point to an absence of talent, but to a pipeline problem, related to how that
talent is retained, developed, and enabled to build companies, especially in the most
capital-intensive sectors.

When the focus shifts from education to entrepreneurship, the gap widens. According to 2024
Istat data, around 30% of Italian businesses are led by women. Yet looking at innovative
startups, the picture sharpens: in Q1 2025, only 14% are founded and prevalently owned by
women (1,684 startups). These numbers reveal a structural issue that goes deeper than
headcount: what matters is how many women reach leadership roles, how long they stay and
under what conditions they access capital, networks, and expertise.

Chiara Petrioli, Professor at La Sapienza University, Founder of deep tech scaleup WSense and
President of InnovUp, puts it plainly: “Female-led businesses struggle more to attract
investment: they raise less, it takes longer, and the terms are worse. The questions directed at
women founders tend to focus on risks, while men are asked about potential.” The result is
that “despite often stronger performance in terms of ROI, women access only a minimal share
of capital.”

European data make this concrete: only 2% of invested capital goes to startups with
exclusively female leadership, versus 82% directed at all-male teams. On timing: 53% of
male-led startups find an investor within the first six months, compared to just 31% of
female-led ones. And only 14% of “key people” in venture capital are women, a detail that
directly influences who gets funded and how potential is assessed.

This is particularly acute in deep tech, where time-to-market is longer, capital needs are
higher, and early-stage metrics don’t always fit the development cycles of deep technologies.
Every cultural or systemic obstacle becomes a multiplier of inequality.

Giorgio Ciron, Director of InnovUp, argues the goal is not to “celebrate the exception” but to
remove the friction that makes it one: “In deep tech the barriers are cumulative: access to
capital, long validation timelines, a gap in international networks and biases that still shape
evaluation processes. We don’t just need more encouragement: we need measurable
conditions, dedicated acceleration programmes, visible role models, and investment criteria
that recognise the specificities of deep tech.”

The good news is that when conditions change, results follow. The European Innovation
Council’s Accelerator programme introduced explicit KPIs to increase the share of female-led
deep tech companies receiving funding. “In 2020 the figure stood at 8%. Today it is 30%”
Petrioli explains. “This didn’t happen spontaneously: it was the result of deliberate tools, such
as mixed panels, targeted mentorship, visible role models, that lowered barriers and made
competition more equitable”.

Initiatives like EPIC-X move in this direction, aiming to transform the European innovation
ecosystem by empowering women-led deep tech startups through dedicated acceleration
pathways and equity-free grants. InnovUp is a partner in the project, contributing the Italian
ecosystem’s perspective to the broader European debate.

Visibility, in this sense, is not a communications detail: it is infrastructure. It generates
ambition, builds trust in the eyes of investors, and normalises the idea that women are not
“an exception” in deep tech, but a necessary component of its growth. If Italy wants more
women in deep tech, acting on a single link in the chain is not enough: capital, coherent
policies, technology transfer tools and ongoing work on how we measure potential are all part
of the picture

This article was written in collaboration with InnovUp. For more information about their work visit InnovUp website.

Find out more about the project here!