Charisma: Closing the Venture Funding Gender Gap

. This paper examines how changing verbal and nonverbal behavior in female entrepreneurs can alter their prospects of being invited to meetings with investors, raising funds, potentially reducing the venture funding gap. In a field study we examine how the use of charismatic tactics in the pitch influences the likelihood of succeeding in a startup competition. In an experimental study, we investigate how the implementation of verbal and nonverbal charismatic tactics (a distinct type of verbal and nonverbal behavior), influences the funding success of female and male entrepreneurs. We investigate the impact of verbal and nonverbal charisma, separately and jointly, on the raised investment pitches using virtual humans acting as entrepreneurs. The verbal content and nonverbal aspects (e.g., gestures, tone of voice) are identical for the female and male virtual humans. This enables us to examine pure gender perception effects while controlling for effects stemming from existing gender differences in verbal and nonverbal behavior. Our results show that charisma matters as the number of charismatic tactics corresponds to a higher likelihood of succeeding into the next round of an entrepreneurial competition. Furthermore, nonverbal charisma has a strong positive effect on funding for female and male entrepreneurs, nevertheless the lack of nonverbal charisma penalizes female entrepreneurs to a greater extent than male entrepreneurs.