Thread by @CatchKristen, I think one reason many VCs have a hard time TRULY believing [...]

I think one reason many VCs have a hard time TRULY believing in funding bias against underrepresented founders is that there& #39;s another thing that can disguise it: the sanctioned background.

I met a cool founder today. Upstart taking on big challenges in an archaic part of HR. It has legs.

This founder told me she had no trouble raising! There& #39;s so much capital! Over Zoom for her pre-seed! People are excited about new things!

(Honestly, I& #39;m pumped for her!)

But compare this to the "women and BIPOC who complain on Twitter" (like me) about how hard it is to fundraise. Maybe it is just about having a really great company and if you& #39;ve got something great the money will just flow. See? Clearly SOME women are raising and that& #39;s great.

I should maybe mention: this woman went to an ivy league school, spent many years leading product at a large fintech, and her two (female) technical cofounders were early and long-tenured employees at ... a company that may or may not be raising on a $100B valuation right now.

Again, I& #39;m excited for this woman. She has earned her pre-seed and the chance to find out if this business will take off. I hope it does.

And VCs are pattern matching. With that background? Who wouldn& #39;t? It& #39;s normal to see one accreditation as validation in other areas.

But I think this clouds some VCs from seeing gender/race bias sometimes. It& #39;s not that you CAN& #39;T get funded if you& #39;re a woman, it& #39;s that on relative terms to others like you it& #39;s harder. So the bias gets written off. The "just execute and you& #39;ll succeed" narrative surfaces.

If I had to out of thin air estimate how much of the *non-company specific* difficulty of fundraising comes from various parts of my story, I& #39;d say:

75% unsanctioned background (no ivy, no FAANG, cofounder who I haven& #39;t known for 5 years, etc.)
25% gender

So is this a problem?

I think yes for two reasons:

a) VCs underestimate bias and therefore aren& #39;t correcting for it, because they are funding underrepresented founders: but typically mostly ones with a highly pre-approved background

and

b) Not having this background is actually held against founders. The bias in our *college application process* that holds down less wealthy people and BIPOC ends up reverberating through your ENTIRE career.

At big companies, there& #39;s an accepted cost savings to ivy hiring.

It& #39;s too inefficient to go to every school, they say.

But in venture? OMG is that a terrible thought process. You should be licking the underside of rocks if it& #39;ll help you find the founder who can 10x your fund. There is NO efficiency argument.

Of course VCs will claim it& #39;s not about efficiency and will likely deny an ivy/FAANG bias. But we know it& #39;s there. As a YC partner once told me about VCs: none of them ever got fired for cutting a seed check to a founder who just left Google.

I believe I have more in common with the state school white male grad building a company in Ohio than I do the "Chosen Ones" who have a background that makes VCs salivate.

We should talk more about background bias and how to avoid it to find the diamonds in the rough.

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