Gender, race, and entrepreneurship: A randomized field experiment on venture capitalists and angels

Abstract

We study gender and race in high-impact entrepreneurship using a tightly controlled randomized field experiment. We sent out 80,000 pitch emails introducing promising but fictitious start-ups to 28,000 venture capitalists and angels. Each email was sent by a fictitious entrepreneur with a randomly selected gender (male or female) and race (Asian or White). Female entrepreneurs received a 9% higher rate of interested replies than male entrepreneurs pitching identical projects and Asian entrepreneurs received a 6% higher rate than their White counterparts. Our results suggest that investors do not discriminate against female or Asian entrepreneurs when evaluating unsolicited pitch emails. for excellent research assistance, including writing pitches; numerous VC industry practitioners for helping us develop pitches and providing helpful guidance; the Stanford GSB Venture Capital Initiative and the SSHRC for financial support; and most importantly, we thank all of the receivers of our pitch emails. This study is registered in the AEA RCT Registry, with the unique identifying number of AEARCTR-0003277. Both authors have consulted for general partners and/or limited partners investing in venture