The look of success: AI-measured face factors and venture financing

Liudmila Alekseeva, Silvia Dalla Fontana, Caroline Genc and Lin Peng

No 772779, Working Papers of Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven from KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven

Abstract: This study presents the first large-scale analysis of face-based impression factors in the venture capital (VC) industry. Using machine learning to extract key impression factors from founders’ photos, we find that perceived trustworthiness, dominance, and youthfulness significantly predict VCs’ initial funding decisions, with relative importance varying by founder gender, team composition, and industry. These factors also predict the funding amount, follow-on financing, and longer-term outcomes, such as unicorn status and acquisitions. Therefore, even experienced investors rely on facial cues when evaluating founders, and such cues serve as imperfect but informative signals of venture success.

Keywords: venture capital; investment selection; impressions; facial recognition; trustworthiness; dominance; attractiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67
Date: 2025-09-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp
Note: paper number MSI_2507
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in FEB Research Report MSI_2507, pages 1-67

Downloads: (external link)
https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/121856d5-849c-4456-8e46-cd32587002a7 Published version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ete:msiper:772779

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers of Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven from KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven
Bibliographic data for series maintained by library EBIB ().