No official ranking of women angel investors exists. One table, Beta Boom's June 2026 analysis of Crunchbase data, lists 30 US-based women angels with 20 or more investments: Esther Dyson has the most in it (124), then Cyan Banister (114) and Joanne Wilson (79). It is a 30-row table from one pre-seed fund, not a census of women angels.
Most lists of "top women angels" repeat the same handful of names without saying how they were chosen. This page is built from linked sources, and it avoids two things a ranking can't support: who is "most successful", and who has the best returns. Counts of investments say how active someone is in one dataset. They say nothing about how their investments turned out.
What does Beta Boom's June 2026 table of women angels show?
Beta Boom, which describes itself as a pre-seed fund, published the table on 9 June 2026 under the title "Top Women Angel Investors Ranked by Results". It is the one named, dated dataset on individual women angels used on this page, so what it is matters as much as what it says:
Size. 30 investors, no more.
Source and filters. Public Crunchbase data, limited to US-based angels with at least 20 total investments and verified portfolio and exit data.
Ranking. By exit rate (exits divided by portfolio companies), not by activity. This page does not use that order.
Limits. Beta Boom says the table may not capture every investment or reflect real-time updates, and that exit rate ignores check size, ownership and return multiples.
What it is not. It is not a census of women angels, not a ranking of the most active, and not a measure of returns. An angel with fewer than 20 investments, or whose deals are missing from Crunchbase, cannot appear in it.
The table does give investment counts. Sorted by those, its top three are:
Esther Dyson: 124 investments.
Cyan Banister: 114 investments.
Joanne Wilson: 79 investments.
For comparison, in the table's own exit-rate order Kim Perell (51.85%), Constance Freedman (46.81%) and Caterina Fake (41.38%) come first, and Esther Dyson is tenth. These are Beta Boom's figures from Crunchbase, so confirm against Crunchbase directly before quoting them. What other sources say about each of the three:
Esther Dyson. TechCrunch reported in 2011 that she was an investor in space companies Xcor and Space Adventures, as well as Airship Ventures and Icon Aircraft. A 2015 TechCrunch piece described her as a former tech journalist who began investing in the 1980s.
Cyan Banister. In a September 2018 TechCrunch article she was a partner at Founders Fund. It said her first angel check went to SpaceX, and listed Uber, Thumbtack, Postmates, Affirm and Niantic among her investments. Check her current role before pitching.
Joanne Wilson. The 2015 TechCrunch piece names her as a New York City-based angel investor, and a 2009 post on her own site says she stays involved with startups by investing money and time.
Beyond these three, the table lists 27 other US women angels. If you want to research them, start from that page and verify each with the person's own site or press.
Which angel groups are built for women?
Individual angels are one route. Groups are the other, and they publish more about themselves:
Golden Seeds. Founded in 2004 "to level the playing field for women entrepreneurs" and investing in women-led startups. Its site currently lists 275+ companies funded, $200 million invested, 1,150+ total investors and 9 chapters. Prospective members can join monthly one-hour virtual open houses.
Pipeline Angels. Founded in 2011 and now a program of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership. It describes a network of women and nonbinary investors and offers angel training. Its homepage lists 550+ members, 130+ member-invested companies and $7M+ invested.
37angels and Pipeline Fellowship. The 2015 TechCrunch piece named these, with Golden Seeds, as groups formed to back women-led startups. Check whether they still operate before approaching them.
These are groups to know both if you are a woman founder looking for investors and if you are a woman who wants to start angel investing.
How many angel investors are women?
Estimates differ by country, year and definition, so compare them with care.
United States. Golden Seeds' co-CEOs Loretta McCarthy and Jo Ann Corkran wrote in Crunchbase News in May 2024 that women made up 5% of angel investors and 3% of funded companies twenty years earlier. For 2022 they put the figures at 40% of angel investors and 31% of angel-funded companies, linking to University of New Hampshire reports.
Earlier US estimates. The 2015 TechCrunch article cited Forbes and Bloomberg from 2014 putting the share at about 18% to 20%. The gap with the 2022 figure shows how much the numbers depend on method.
United Kingdom. Beauhurst's 2025 research, done with the UK Business Angels Association, counts just over 8,000 women angels, 14.1% of the UK angel population. It defines a woman angel as having at least two shareholdings in equity-backed businesses, and finds that only 2.44% of women angels hold shares in five or more companies. That period runs from 2015 to the first half of 2025.
The UK picture continues in the list of UK angel networks.
How can you work with, or become, a woman angel investor?
If you are a founder, research the groups above and ask for their screening criteria. Golden Seeds and Pipeline Angels each describe their own process on their sites.
If you want to invest, Pipeline Angels says it offers angel training, and Golden Seeds describes monthly virtual open houses for prospective members. The guide to joining an angel group or syndicate explains what to expect, and angel investor networks in 2026 compares more of them.
Check the legal side. In the US most private rounds rely on accredited-investor rules, covered in how to become an angel investor.
Activity data. Most active angel investors, 2024 to 2025 shows how activity data is built, and the guide to finding angels covers outreach.
More lists and guides are in the angel investing section.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:Who is the most active woman angel investor?
No source establishes that for all women angels. In Beta Boom's June 2026 table of 30 US-based women angels with 20 or more investments, built from Crunchbase data, Esther Dyson has the most investments (124), followed by Cyan Banister (114) and Joanne Wilson (79). That is a count of investments, not a measure of results, and Crunchbase data is incomplete.
Q:What percentage of angel investors are women?
It depends on the source. Golden Seeds' leaders cite University of New Hampshire data for 40% of US angel investors in 2022, while Beauhurst puts women at 14.1% of the UK angel population in 2025. Definitions differ, so the figures aren't directly comparable.
Q:Are there angel networks just for women?
Yes. Golden Seeds invests in women-led startups and has done since 2004, and Pipeline Angels is a network of women and nonbinary investors founded in 2011. Both describe their programs on their own sites.
Q:Do women angels invest only in women founders?
No source here says that. Golden Seeds and Pipeline Angels have stated focuses on women or underrepresented founders, but the individual angels named above invest across sectors, from space companies in Esther Dyson's case to Uber and Affirm in Cyan Banister's, according to the TechCrunch pieces linked above.
Q:How do I get started as a woman angel investor?
Pipeline Angels describes itself as a network of women and nonbinary investors and says it offers angel training, and Golden Seeds describes monthly one-hour virtual open houses for prospective members. Both explain their processes on their own sites. Whether you meet accredited-investor rules depends on where you live.