Marketing

Social psychology

Public relations

Mediation

Homophily

Economics

Computer science

Business

Disadvantage

Psychology

Position (finance)

Entrepreneurship

Political science

Demographic economics

Meta-analysis

Internal medicine

Artificial intelligence

Gender gap

Venture capital

Socialization

Medicine

Finance

Perspective (graphical)

Female entrepreneurs

Journal of Business Venturing Insights

Using gender homophily and gender socialization as theoretical foundations, the current study takes the position that both funder-driven (supply-side) and entrepreneur-driven (demand-side) processes perpetuate the gender gap in venture funding. Using this positional anchor, I performed a meta-analysis on gender-funding associations. The results show that gender-funding associations are different across funding contexts, which is consistent with what gender homophily and a funder-driven perspective might suggest. However, the nature of the difference depends on whether the outcome is funding amount or funding success. In addition, business size and industry sector were found to fully mediate the relation between entrepreneur gender and funding needed. This finding is consistent with what gender socialization and an entrepreneur-driven perspective might suggest. The mediation results ultimately suggest that female entrepreneurs need less funding for their ventures, which in turn results in less funding amounts but greater funding success. As such, there is one gender gap to the disadvantage of female entrepreneurs (funding amount) and another gender gap to the advantage of female entrepreneurs (funding success). Together, the perspectives and findings presented in this paper provide insights for both research and practice on the gender gap(s) in venture funding.

A meta-analysis of the gender gap(s) in venture funding: Funder- and entrepreneur-driven perspectives