Missionaries outperform in venture funding

While prior research has evidenced the impact of founder social identities on new venture creation, our understanding of how founder identity affects funding performance as a critical determinant for venture success is limited. Given that different identities define various motivational concepts—that is, missionaries increasing benefits for society at large, as opposedto darwinians maximizing economic self-interest and communitarians supporting a particular community—we propose a model for how such founder identity differences relate to ambiguous funding outcomes. Our findings reveal that the missionary founder social identity has a significantly positive impact on funding performance. We discuss our contributions to founder social identity theory and its intersection with behavioral finance.