Getting rid of bias in the investment process

Human decision-making – even when a lot of money is at stake, is not always rational.
A lot of the time it’s based on intangible factors that influence people in ways that can’t be explained or justified by data or analysis – this is after all, the entire basis for the field of behavioural economics, and it’s not new information. So why, in an industry like venture capital, are people still led oftentimes more by their gut than their head? The answer, of course, is human nature. But in an industry that looks for outliers, that tries to go against the grain, why is it not more of a priority to minimise the amount of returns left on the table by counteracting well-known flaws in our thinking?
My guest today is Sharon Vosmek, CEO and managing partner of VC firm Astia, which has, at the core of its thesis, diversity. Not just diversity for its own sake, though Vosmek argues that that would be good enough – but rather as a tangible, strategic way to cast the net as widely as possible, and to eliminate the biases that ultimately end up hurting your return profile.
Astia recently released a white paper on what it calls the Sift – its method of sourcing and screening companies for investment, in a way that tries to filter out the pitfalls that people fall into because of their biases or hunches. Things like not starting the process with introductions, but rather an in-depth assessment of the business before face-to-face meetings, or drawing on the experience of a large diverse group of external advisors to assess each company – thereby also spreading the biases across a wider set of experiences.
At a time when diversity and inclusion initiatives are coming under attack, Vosmek defends this not as some gimmick, but as a way to demonstrably bring in more money – indeed, Astia’s data has shown a far lower failure rate for startups that have made it through the Sift, than the average, and a higher rate not just of survival, but of successful exits, than failures.
We also talk about the biases that still exist and how they may manifest themselves, the potential impact that the perception of being an “inclusive” fund may have on fundraising, and the wider impact of a current climate that is hostile to inclusion initiatives.
But first, I speak to GCV’s Kim Moore about how investors can take advantage of innovation in universities.

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