While the past year has seen increased strides toward gender equality in entrepreneurship, it’s still a work in progress, especially when it comes to venture capital. Among the 3,003 companies that secured Seed, Series A or Series B funding in 2016, only 479 (16%) had at least one female founder, and only 246 (8%) had a female CEO. These findings are echoed by a recent study by CrunchBase, which found that between 2010-2015, only 15 percent of seed dollars globally went to startups with at least one female founder.

Although the lack of funding attributed to female-founded and female-led companies can be discouraging, there remain a wealth of women-led companies that have managed to bridge the funding gap. With this in mind, 99designs decided to take a closer look into who these successful companies are, focusing on companies that raised at least one round of funding (Seed, Series A or Series B) in 2016.

[RELATED: Female Entrepreneurs by The Numbers [INFOGRAPHIC]]

Turns out, these companies stretch coast to coast and across industries. An infographic visualizing commonalities in location, industry and funding amounts is available here, alongside the full list of companies. 99designs also analyzed the logo trends amongst the top 50 most-funded companies to determine some common visual threads and themes amongst these trailblazing brands.

With such fine leadership, we look forward to seeing these companies achieve even more victories.

Female-Led Companies That Have Bridged The Funding Gap [INFOGRAPHIC]