Minimum Viable Signal: Venture Funding, Social Movements, and Race
研究了乔治·弗洛伊德事件后风险投资对黑人创业者的反应，发现投资短暂增加但两年内回落，且主要由从未投资过黑人创业者的投资者驱动，他们更倾向于一次性投资而非深度参与。
How do venture capital investors react to social movements, including those that relate to historical underrepresentation in funding? We use image and name algorithms combined with clerical review to classify race for 150,000 founders and 30,000 investors. These data allow us to assess the impact of George Floyd’s murder on VC funding of Black entrepreneurs and identify which VCs were most responsive. Although VCs responded swiftly, investment in Black-founded startups reverted to prior levels within two years. This temporary reaction was concentrated among those who had never previously invested in any Black entrepreneur. Moreover, the investors who responded were less likely to invest in more than one Black-founded startup and were less inclined to engage deeply by taking a board seat. Finally, it appears that the best Black entrepreneurs may have anticipated this “token” response because they did not match with investors who had no experience funding Black startups. This paper was accepted by Toby Stuart, entrepreneurship and innovation. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.06410 .