Novel digital forms of entrepreneurial finance offer to democratize entrepreneurs’ access to capital. However, realizing this democratization potential requires increasing the participation of women as investors. We consider an innovative approach to encouraging women’s entry as investors in entrepreneurial finance platforms: incentivizing existing platform users to make gift investments on behalf of women. An initial gift will, we expect, encourage women to continue making subsequent investments themselves. To test whether existing platform users can be incentivized to make such gift investments, we conducted a randomized field experiment with a prominent Northern European equity crowdfunding platform. The experiment utilized the platform’s newsletter, sent on International Women’s Day. The control version encouraged gift investments without specifying recipient gender, while the treatment version explicitly encouraged gift investments to women. Both versions offered a small economic incentive. Contrary to our expectations, the gender cue did not affect gift investments. However, we observed an unintended consequence: the gender cue increased self-investments. The average self-investment rate increased from 0.6% without the gender cue to 0.9% with the gender cue (p = 0.049). The effect was particularly significant among men and in conservative-leaning areas. We will evaluate three mechanisms to explain the increase in self-investment behavior: zero-sum beliefs, identity threat to men’s traditional roles, and men’s increased risk-taking behavior in response to women-related cues. The study contributes to the literature on gender in entrepreneurial finance.
