Female Founders in Web3: The Next Decentralised Revolution

The funding gap in venture capital is hardly new, but it’s especially stark in Web3.

While headlines focus on crypto volatility, a quieter revolution is underway: female founders in Web3 are building decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure, governance models, and community-owned platforms that are thriving without traditional venture capital support. What appears to be exclusion may actually be evolution. These founders are proving that innovation in decentralization doesn’t always depend on venture capital; it depends on vision. 

Let’s take a closer look at how they’re reshaping the next era of the internet. 

When gatekeepers stop mattering 

Before venture capital took notice, several female founders in Web3 were already proving that creative ownership and decentralized governance could thrive without traditional backing. Their stories highlight how innovation scales when gatekeepers stop defining who gets to build. 

These founders demonstrate a shared truth: innovation doesn’t wait for permission. Whether in art, finance, or infrastructure, female founders in Web3 are turning scarcity into strategy and redesigning how value and ownership evolve in decentralised ecosystems. 

The academic route 

In Europe, women leading deep-tech blockchain ventures raised roughly a third of regional Web3 funding, modest progress, but meaningful. 

Many female founders in Web3 have academic backgrounds. Women entering DeFi through cryptography or distributed systems research focus on consensus mechanisms and verification, rather than hype-driven marketing. 

Eowyn Chen, a Harvard-educated and a former Binance executive, scaled Trust Wallet from 40 million users to over 200 million while maintaining decentralisation principles. Her 2025 roadmap integrates AI-based security features with a simpler user experience, positioning Trust Wallet as infrastructure, not just another crypto app. 

While most so-called “AI-powered” features in crypto today are simply pattern-matching and risk-scoring tools, they still improve safety over manual monitoring. Protocol design and cryptographic verification don’t always trend on social media, but these skills determine which Web3 women build systems built to last. 

How women are changing DeFi economics 

Women in DeFi earn significantly less than men in Web3 finance, a gap wider than in traditional tech. That inequity has led to a different approach: capital-efficient building. 

Magdalena Kala’s consumer-focused Web3 fund, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Paradigm, focuses on connecting everyday users to crypto. Her thesis is straightforward — the next phase of adoption hinges on storytelling that resonates with everyday users, not just crypto insiders. 

Kathryn Haun took a similar path when she founded Haun Ventures after years as a federal prosecutor leading the government’s first cryptocurrency task force. Her firm backs startups navigating regulation without stifling innovation, providing legal and operational frameworks that strengthen rather than slow decentralization. 

This is how female founders in Web3 are rewriting DeFi economics: building frameworks that balance efficiency with transparency and designing governance models that prioritize long-term participation over speculative growth. 

Infrastructure over hype cycles 

Several female-founded companies reached unicorn status this year, including Writer, Physical Intelligence, and Monad Labs. The count matters less than the context. 

Organizations such as Women of Web3 and Unstoppable Women of Web3 are expanding professional networks and providing educational opportunities. The HBAR Foundation operates a Female Founders Fund supporting the Hedera ecosystem, while Mastercard’s Belle Block initiative partners with communities like SheFi, HerHouse, Blu3 DAO, and Boys Club to increase crypto adoption. 

These aren’t diversity campaigns; they’re infrastructure initiatives recognizing that mainstream protocol adoption requires broader developer participation. Web3 can’t scale if its community resembles a university computer science lab from a decade ago. 

Women designing decentralized governance are creating entirely new job categories: community-treasury management, DAO governance design, grant-program administration, and compliance for decentralized systems.

These bridge roles connect traditional corporate processes with distributed alternatives, and bridge-builders are increasingly in demand. 

Market reality check 

The current political climate has made diversity funding more complex, but the impact on female-led Web3 startups remains limited so far. In Europe, female-founded companies have raised slightly less this year compared with the previous period, mirroring the overall market slowdown. 

This parallel trend shows that female founders in Web3 are weathering the downturn as well as, if not better than, their peers. Many are simply adapting faster, turning structural barriers into design advantages. 

They’re creating ecosystems that don’t depend on traditional venture capital, communities that provide funding, mentorship, and technical collaboration independently. They’re targeting underserved markets and designing governance models built for decentralized economies rather than legacy corporate structures. 

Distilled 

Female founders in Web3 are building critical infrastructure while receiving a fraction of the venture funding. That imbalance forces innovation in how capital, governance, and participation work. 

The funding gap prompts women to seek funding from protocol grants, community funding, and alternative revenue models. Cultural bias directs them to markets male founders overlook, leading to parallel ecosystems with different priorities and incentives. 

For professionals entering this space, the real question isn’t when funding parity will arrive; it’s whether you’ll recognize the new opportunities these founders are creating. Governance design, protocol architecture, community management, and regulatory strategy are becoming vital skill sets in decentralized ecosystems. 

The Web3 revolution isn’t being decided in boardrooms on Sand Hill Road; it’s unfolding in Discord channels, DAO proposals, and governance forums where women are quietly shaping the infrastructure that makes decentralization real.