Entrepreneurial Fundraising Strategies and the Gender Gap: Theory and Evidence from Equity Crowdfunding
中文摘要
由女性创始人执掌的初创企业筹集的资金通常少于男性创始人执掌的企业。已有文献从投资者需求角度进行探讨,发现了同类匹配(assortative matching)的证据,即投资者更倾向于投资与自己同性别的创业者。本文在股权众筹情境下考察性别融资缺口的供给侧,探讨女性与男性创始人如何预期不同的投资者需求。我们构建了一个同类匹配理论,该理论给出四个基准预测:女性创始人(i)要求的融资金额更少,(ii)项目成功概率相同,(iii)在成功时获得的资金更少,(iv)超额融资比例相同——超额融资比例定义为实际获得资金与申请融资金额之比。利用来自英国一家股权众筹平台的专有数据(其中既包括成功的项目也包括失败的项目),证据与前三项预测相符,同时发现全女性团队的融资缺口大于混合性别团队。就超额融资比例而言,我们发现混合性别(全女性)团队的超额融资比例高于(低于)全男性基准。我们还发现,女性投资者相对更多地资助混合性别团队,而男性投资者对全女性团队的资助则不成比例地更少。对于资本密集程度更高的项目,性别差距更大。本文由 David Sraer(金融学)录用。资助:本研究得到牛津大学赛德商学院(John Fell 基金)和特拉维夫大学 Coller 创业研究所的资助。补充材料:在线附录及数据文件可从 https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.06658 获取。
Abstract
Start-ups with female founders typically raise less money than their male counterparts. Prior literature explores investor demand and finds evidence of assortative matching, where investors prefer to invest in entrepreneurs of their own gender. In the context of equity crowdfunding, we examine the supply side of the gender funding gap, asking how female and male founders anticipate different investor demand. We develop an assortative matching theory that generates four benchmark predictions, namely that female founders (i) ask for less funding, (ii) have the same campaign success probability, (iii) receive less funding if successful, and (iv) have the same overfunding ratio, defined as the ratio of funding received over funding requested. Leveraging proprietary data from a UK equity crowdfunding platform that includes both successful and unsuccessful ventures, the evidence matches the first three predictions, also finding that all-female teams have larger funding gaps than mixed-gender teams. For the overfunding ratio, we find that mixed-gender (all-female) teams have higher (lower) overfunding ratios than the all-male benchmark. We also find that female investors fund mixed-gender teams relatively more, whereas male investors give disproportionately less to all-female teams. Gender gaps increase for more capital-intensive ventures. This paper was accepted by David Sraer, finance. Funding: This work was supported by Said Business School, University of Oxford [John Fell Fund] and the Coller Institute of Venture at Tel Aviv University. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.06658 .