The video game funding gap: How investors are failing marginalized developers

polygon.com:

Investors and publishers spend billions of dollars on the video game industry each year, but just a small fraction of that money goes toward funding game companies led by women and those from other marginalized groups. Even as venture capitalist funding surged in 2021 as a response to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, video game companies led by all-male founders brought in $4.1 billion in funding to the $1.2 million for companies with all-female founders, according to data provided to Polygon from investment research company PitchBook. (In 2021, gaming companies with mixed-gender founders — i.e., those including at least one woman — received $400.9 million in 62 deals, according to the data.)

In part, the disparity is explained by the number of companies getting investments: In 2021, the $4.1 billion went to 223 different companies led by men, while the $1.2 million went to just five companies led by all women. But even when accounting for the number of companies, there’s still a gap. If those investments were spread equally, the all-men-led companies would have received about $18.4 million each, while the five women-led companies would have received $240,000 each. (Companies with both men and women as leaders would have received roughly $6 million each.) In other words, the companies led by all men received around 76 times the funding of those led by all women. The data that’s missing, however, is how many companies led by all-women founders tried for funding and didn’t get it.

When investments decreased dramatically in 2023 — gaming companies led by all-male founders pulled in $400 million in VC funding, while those led by all women got $1.6 million in data up to October 2023 — companies led by women, again, received a smaller portion of the limited funding, though the total was up from 2021 for women-led companies.

“There is a massive disparity on how funding is allocated in the industry, with projects led by women and other gender marginalized persons grossly