Economic Intelligence Brief No. 18 — Published October 2026

The Intersection Penalty — Why Two Founder-Identity Advantages in Reg CF Do Not Combine

Two founder-identity advantages that are each real on their own do not add up.

0.56× — of the funded-odds boost the two effects would predict

Summary

Research on founder diversity usually stops at the size of the funding gap. The more consequential question is what happens to the capital that does arrive. Regulation Crowdfunding is the one early-stage channel that discloses every offering, which makes it possible to test that question across a complete population rather than a sample. Companies with both a female and a minority founder receive 56% of the funded-odds boost, and 31.8% less of the amount-raised boost, that their two single-identity effects would predict.

Key findings

Representation rose, capital share did not. The share of offerings with a female founder, and separately with a minority founder, each roughly doubled between 2016 and 2023, from about 15% to 30–32%, while the share of dollars stayed in the high teens to low twenties.
Companies with a female founder and no minority founder are funded at twice the odds of companies with neither (2.00×) and raise 46.5% more.
Companies with a minority founder and no female founder show the same pattern (1.36×, +13.6%). Both results hold after controlling for target size, industry, geography and security type.
The two advantages do not combine: stacked, the intersectional group would be funded at 2.73× and raise 66.5% more. The actual figures are 1.54× and +13.5%, statistically indistinguishable from zero.
The shortfall appears three separate ways — funded status, amount raised, and follow-on raises. The intersectional follow-on rate, 11.8%, is the lowest of the four groups, below founders with neither identity at 14.1%.

Frequently asked questions

What is the intersection penalty?

Companies with both a female and a minority founder receive 56% of the funded-odds advantage, and 31.8% less of the amount-raised advantage, that their two single-identity effects would predict if those effects combined.

Do single-identity founders outperform?

Yes. Female-only founders are funded at 2.00× the odds of founders with neither identity and raise 46.5% more; minority-only founders are at 1.36× and +13.6%. Both survive controls for target size, industry, geography and security type.

How is the analysis built?

From 10,477 Reg CF offerings filed between May 2016 and December 31, 2025, with controlled models run on the 9,623 offerings carrying recorded transactional raise data. Founder identity is observer-coded from the public offering record and flagged at the any-founder level.

Audience

Foundations · academic & policy research

About this brief

Published by CCLEAR.ai. Anchored to public SEC EDGAR filings and hand-verified against a locked data snapshot. CCLEAR is a data publisher, not an investment adviser; figures describe market activity, not investment outcomes or advice.

The Intersection Penalty — Why Two Founder-Identity Advantages in Reg CF Do Not Combine · CCLEAR Research Library · License the data · Commission research

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