Does Gender Matter? Women Business Angels and the Supply of Entrepreneurial Finance in the United Kingdom

Abstract

There is a substantial literature on the relationship between gender and access to finance, without any definite conclusions having been reached. Most of this research has been into access to debt finance. More recently, the focus of this research has broadened to examine women and venture capital. This paper extends this research further to examine the role of women in the business angel market, which is more important than the formal venture capital market in terms of both the number of ventures supported and total capital flows. Based on a detailed analysis of business angels in the UK, we conclude that women investors active in the market differ from their male counterparts in only limited respects.