Funding for startups in the U.S. went up 75% in the first half of this year. A big chunk of this is money flowing into fledgling artificial intelligence companies.

But when you zoom out, there's actually a decline in the amount of money that venture capital groups raised. There are several headwinds when it comes to this kind of investment, including tariffs, and the cancellation of government grants and contracts under the Trump administration.

Golden Seeds does both venture capital and angel investment, specifically for businesses founded by women. Jo Ann Corkran is co-CEO and managing partner there. “Marketplace Morning Report” host Nancy Marshall-Genzer checked in with her for a closer look at what’s happening in the startup space. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Nancy Marshall-Genzer: I've reported on the impact of government cuts on federal workers, but private companies rely on government contracts and grants too, of course. Can you tell us about the effect that these cuts and cancellations are having on startups, especially startups led by women?

Jo Ann Corkran: About 50% of the things that we do, the companies in which we invest, are either bio and life sciences-related or deep tech-related, things that depend on scientific and technological advancements to start a business. And all of these companies, I would say, have considered — as they look at their business plans over the next couple of years — have considered some possibility that they would get more grants to advance whatever the tech is, and they have really had to stop and reevaluate.

Marshall-Genzer: Of course, along with the cuts in government contracts, tariffs are in the mix now. How has that affected angel investments and how you evaluate an investment?

Corkran: Let's say you're a company who has developed a product in the U.S. at a prototyping facility, right? And now you have a product, and you have customers who want to buy it, and you want to scale it and lower the price. So what are you going to do? In many cases, you would go offshore. You can't. So we're seeing that with a lot of companies. There's also this whole uncertainty out there, and for us, as investors, when things are uncertain, that means we're going to pay a lower price for them.

Marshall-Genzer: Oh, so the female entrepreneurs are getting not such a great deal during uncertain times?

Corkran: I would say it's not just female entrepreneurs. I would say it's all entrepreneurs. You know, if tailwinds or headwinds are uncertain, for me as an investor, I need more reason to invest. You know, we invested in a company that — very interesting, fun technology. They created a polymer that, it's a magnet for plastic. Stick it in a water treatment facility, and it attracts microplastics. It's very interesting tech. Sort of the tailwind for that is that there's a real concern about microplastics and water, and people want to have this mitigated. Well, lo and behold, with the current state of science in our government, I would say that the chances of having that kind of legislation are pushed out. So that tailwind has declined a little bit.