Publications
Publications
- September 2024
- Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Networking Frictions in Venture Capital, and the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship
By: Sabrina T. Howell and Ramana Nanda
Abstract
We find that male participants in Harvard Business School’s New Venture Competition who were randomly exposed to more VC investors on their panel were substantially more likely to start a VC-backed startup post-graduation, indicating that access to investors impacts fundraising independent of the quality of ideas. However, female participants experience no benefit from exposure to male or female VCs, which appears related to a reduced propensity to reach out to VCs to whom they were exposed. Our results therefore also demonstrate gender-based differences in the degree to which increased exposure to investors can address networking frictions in venture capital.
Keywords
Citation
Howell, Sabrina T., and Ramana Nanda. "Networking Frictions in Venture Capital, and the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship." Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 59, no. 6 (September 2024): 2733–2761.