Female Tech Entrepreneurs Hampered by Bias Among Male Investors, Study Finds

The study's authors analyzed data for nearly 18,000 companies and found that female-founded start-ups have a harder time gaining investor interest and raising money. A new study is highlighting one possible reason women aren't making more headway in Silicon Valley: men prefer to invest in companies run by other men. With men making up 90 percent of venture capitalists, that preference is a bottleneck that keeps women out of the ranks of tech entrepreneurs. The study's authors, Michael Ewens of Caltech and Richard Townsend of UC San Diego, analyzed nearly 18,000 start-ups to identify the "chicken and egg" situation faced by women entrepreneurs. Because female-led start-ups face tougher funding prospects than male-led start-ups, fewer women enter the tech entrepreneur pipeline that ultimately feeds the ranks of venture capitalists. Without an adequate supply of female venture capitalists, women-founded start-ups continue to struggle to find funding.  "Women are treated differently than their male counterparts. They receive less interest and, in the end, less funding from male investors," says Ewens, a Caltech associate professor of finance and entrepreneurship in the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.