Does more education lead to better startup funding outcomes?

Abstract

Much of the extant research on the relationship between founder education level and entrepreneurial success finds that more education is associated with increased success. Using a unique data set of startups from a large startup competition, this paper specifically explores funding success and empirically confirms that more education is associated with an increased likelihood of funding. Additionally, we also find a negative curvilinear aspect to that relationship, meaning that although education generally improves funding, too much education may actually impair funding outcomes.

Keywords

• Startups
• education
• venture capital
• human capital
• entrepreneurial finance
• angel investing