Black and white or shades of grey? Consequences of entrepreneurs' cognitive complexity for startup funding - 20 May 2020

About the seminar: “In this paper, we address the question of how entrepreneurs’ cognitive processes, specifically their cognitive complexity, influence early-stage investors’ decision-making. We theorize an inverted U-shaped relationship between entrepreneurs’ cognitive complexity, i.e., their degree of nuanced and differentiated thinking, and investors’ decision-making in the context of early-stage venture funding. We test our hypothesis in a large sample of early-stage venture pitches at an industry-leading startup event. Overall, our results suggest that ventures led by entrepreneurs with higher cognitive complexity attract more interest and funding from investors. We also find that this positive effect decreases at very high levels of cognitive complexity. Our findings contribute to the literature on new ventures’ resource acquisition and entrepreneurial cognition”.