The Athena Festival, a trailblazing event dedicated to empowering female entrepreneurs outside of London, returns for its second year at Nexus Leeds on Tuesday 7 October 2025.

The 2025 Invest in Women Code report shows that at the early stage, 71% of deals reported by angel groups who were signatories were for all female led or mixed gender led teams, with all female led being the highest single group. In addition female founders backed by women led angel groups achieved twice as much investment as all male founder led businesses.