The world of venture capital, from who hands out the money to who receives most of it, skews male. According to research from Crunchbase last year, women make up only 7 percent of partners at top 100 VC firms. And in 2016, women founders received a little more than 2 percent of venture capital funding.
What’s behind these dismal numbers? A new study conducted by researchers from Columbia Business School and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School identified that the types of questions that VCs pose to female and male founders differ greatly and impact how much money the founders receive.
The researchers observed the interactions between 140 venture capitalists — 60 percent men and 40 percent women — and 189 entrepreneurs (12 percent of whom were women) during pitch sessions at TechCrunch Disrupt New York. Ultimately, they found that while the companies were similar in the amount of money they sought, the companies with male founders raised five times more than the startups headed by women.
Essentially, while men got questions…