Venture Capital, Social Capital and the Funding of Women-led Businesses.

摘要

Studies of Women-Led Businesses (WLBs) have increased dramatically over the past 15 years. One consistent finding in this research is that WLBs receive less outside funding than Men-Led Businesses (MLBs). Further, Venture Capital (VC) funding of WLBs consisted of only 6% of the total funds invested in the United States between 1997 and 2000. Are there unique features to the VC firms that invest in WLBs. And how does investing in WLBs affect the subsequent performance of VC firms. Our study addresses these questions using a social capital lens. Our data for this study consist of all U.S. VC investments from 2000 through 2010. The dataset includes 2,500 VC firms, 18,900 portfolio companies (those companies VC firms invested in during the 11 year period of the study), 92,500 individual management team members and 90,000 investment rounds. Using this data, we examine how the co-investing relationships among VC firms affect the funding of WLBs. We proposed that those VC firms without strong social capital, created through co-investing with other VC firms, would be more likely to invest in WLBs. Our results were mixed. VC firms that co-invest with other VC firms that do not co-invest with one another invest in a lower percentage of investments in WLBs. This social capital measure is called structural holes. VC firms with lower rates of structural holes invest in a higher percentage of WLBs. Another finding is that VC firms that have long-term co-investing relationships with other VC firms that co-invest frequently with these other firms invest in a higher percentage of WLBs when compared to VC firms without long-term relationships. Finally, our study finds that the performance of VC firms improves as the ratio of investment in WLBs increases. This study provides insights for VC firms looking to improve their performance and to WLBs searching for VC funding.