this allows an analysis of the population of founders seeking financing in a way that has not previously been possible and a direct investigation of whether and why gender appeals to be an important determinant of fundraising success examples include but are not restricted to alexy et al first crunchbase cannot avoid selection insofar as startups initially may also seek other platforms or ways to receive financing this does not necessarily pose a problem for investigating the gender gap as long as there are no grounds to think that this selfselection is related to gender