Women backing women: The role of crowdfunding in empowering female consumer-investors and entrepreneurs

Compared with their male counterparts, female entrepreneurs receive a disproportionately small amount of funding. One frequently cited reason for this disparity is the lack of female representation in the entrepreneurial funding decision-making process. Today, crowdfunding offers an innovative avenue for both male and female entrepreneurs and democratizes the funding decision-making process. Individual consumers (i.e., consumer-investors or backers) can now unite to influence funding outcomes. Yet, questions remain as to the motivations and behaviors of these backers supporting entrepreneurial projects through crowdfunding. This study integrates social capital theory along with the theory of choice homophily to examine the motivating factors of both male and female backers. It tests the conceptual model by analyzing empirical data collected from more than 2,000 Spanish crowdfunding backers. The findings confirm that compared with male backers, female backers support internal and external social ties to a greater extent when deciding on what projects to support.