Does ESG Investing Help VC Funds to Attract Startups? Experimental Evidence

Abstract

Despite recent progress of examining investors' ESG preferences, little is known about firms' preferences about ESG investors. This paper studies whether aiming for ESG influences startups' intentions to collaborate with venture capitalists through two complementary field experiments that involve real US startup founders and real-world stakes. The first experiment requires entrepreneurs to evaluate multiple randomly generated investor profiles so that they can receive a recommendation list containing real matched investors' information. The second experiment is a novel payment game, which is created to elicit entrepreneurs' taste-driven preferences. Provided with real monetary incentives, entrepreneurs decide whether to pay for a more comprehensive investor recommendation list which contains randomized number of ESG investors and is sold at a randomized price. Results find that (i) Aiming for E, S, and G has heterogeneous effects. Environmental initiatives reduce venture capitalists' attractiveness to startups while social initiatives might improve investors' attractiveness. (ii) Positive assortative matching based on ESG exists in startups’ fundraising process. (iii) Male investors benefit from aiming for social impact while female investors get punished for aiming for environmental impact. (iv) A random utility model suggests that startup founders have taste-driven preferences towards ESG investors.

Keywords: Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, ESG, Sustainable Finance, Field Experiments

JEL Classification: G24, L26, C39, M14, C78