Recent international initiatives show an increasing concern with gender data gaps, and—thanks in large part to decades of feminist advocacy—a growing awareness of the significant harm that can be caused by research that excludes women, girls, and other marginalized communities’ experiences. These gaps have become especially evident in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While this momentum to address global gender data gaps is highly welcomed, today’s data ecosystem remains largely built around a false “build it, and they will come” assumption—with greater investments being made in data collection and publication, rather than gender data uptake and impact. Indeed, a recent study by Data2X indicates that organizations involved in increasing the uptake and impact of available data make up the smallest share of stakeholders in the global gender data industry.