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'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's so much capital! Over Zoom for her pre-seed! People are excited about new things!

(Honestly, I'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've got something great the money will just flow. See? Clearly SOME women are raising and that'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'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't? It'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's not that you CAN'T get funded if you're a woman, it's that on relative terms to others like you it's harder. So the bias gets written off. The "just execute and you'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'd say:

75% unsanctioned background (no ivy, no FAANG, cofounder who I haven'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'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's an accepted cost savings to ivy hiring.

It'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'll help you find the founder who can 10x your fund. There is NO efficiency argument.

Of course VCs will claim it's not about efficiency and will likely deny an ivy/FAANG bias. But we know it'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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