Womens Club? : The Role of Gender in the Female Business Angel’s Investment Process

Abstract: Business angels constitute an increasingly important source of capital for entrepreneurs in their ventures’ early stages. Previous research and reports, however, state that female entrepreneurs are heavily underfunded. Through a qualitative approach, this study aims to explore how gender plays a role in female business angels' decision to invest, using homosocial theory as a lens when analyzing the empirics gained from the nine conducted interviews with female business angels. Analyzing the empirics of this study, the authors found that on a broader level, female business angels display a tendency towards conditional homosociality, but minimal heterosocial or homosocial tendencies, in their investment decision-making process. The implications of this study emphasize the importance of gaining a greater understanding of how gender plays a role in business angels' decision to invest, to potentially better understand the gap in funding between female and male entrepreneurs.