We find that male participants in Harvard Business School’s New Venture Competition who
were randomly exposed to more VC investors on their panel were substantially more likely to
start a VC-backed startup post-graduation, indicating that access to investors impacts fundraising independent of the quality of ideas. However, female participants experience no benefit
from exposure to male or female VCs, which appears related to a reduced propensity to reach
out to VCs to whom they were exposed. Our results therefore also demonstrate gender-based
differences in the degree to which increased exposure to investors can address networking frictions in venture capital.