A group of UK-based startups, VCs and industry groups has unveiled a new framework designed to make it easier to monitor diversity in the ecosystem.
While UK investors increasingly rely on data to guide their investments, there’s little comprehensive information collated showing who gets funded and who deploys capital where.
The UK Diversity Data Alliance (DDA) is hoping to improve that with a new shared framework, designed to gather more granular information about founders and their backers. It’s hoped this will help track investment trends and promote equity in an industry where underrepresented founders have received little to no funding.
The DDA is led by Diversity VC, Bae HQ, European Women in VC, i3 investing, Social Mobility Ventures, Tech Nation and Venture ESG.
“We want to see a British venture capital system that is more representative of the whole population, and we all recognise that data is mission critical in how we do that,” says Meghan Stevenson-Krausz, co-CEO of Diversity VC.
She points out that “the majority” of VC firms in the UK have received cheques from the British Business Bank, which means they are managing taxpayer money. “And yet, if we look at where the money is going… it’s not actually going to founders that represent the British population writ large,” she says.
“We want to get a better sense of how capital is flowing from LPs to VCs to founders. It starts with knowing who’s getting money from who, and therefore also who’s benefitting.”
Standardising data collection
The UK framework builds upon a US model established in 2024 which focuses on the collection of data points such as contact information, gender identity, age and sexual orientation.
The DDA has adapted the framework to the UK market, aiming to standardise three additional areas: ethnicity, disability and socioeconomic background.
The data collection process involves firms using the same form for all founders or fund managers. Firms will ask the same five questions about basic information including the person’s name, pronouns and location. Additionally, firms will ask the same questions on ethnicity, disability status, socio-economic background, gender identity, age, and sexual orientation.
Stevenson-Krausz emphasises that disclosure among respondents is entirely voluntary — and for each question, there is a ‘prefer not to say’ or ‘not applicable’ option, for those who do not want to disclose information on certain characteristics.
When asked about uptake by the wider industry, Stevenson-Krausz says: “We very much hope that more VC funds, LPs, nonprofits, and other ecosystem actors — both within VC and in adjacent spaces — will adopt the framework. Our aim is for this to become the shared baseline across the UK VC ecosystem, and we’re encouraged by the momentum we’re seeing.”
Already, US non-profit LGBT+VC and founding signatories Ada Ventures and Equality Group have said they have adopted the framework.
“The other really important next step from our perspective is we’d like to see legislation that would mandate transparency in the UK venture capital sector,” adds Stevenson-Krausz.
The group is advocating for similar legislation that has been passed in the state of California, which will require firms to report a demographic breakdown of the founders they invest in starting in 2026.
Stevenson-Krausz says that the UK ecosystem is “not moving as much in the direction we’d like to see when it comes to diversity,” making data collection all the more crucial. “We need the data to be able to understand where the gaps truly are, and therefore also design more effective interventions.”
