Confidence and capital raising

We investigate whether the confidence of management teams, defined as the certainty about handling what one desires to do, affects the capacity of firms to raise external capital. Drawing on psychology research, we run an experiment in which participants are asked to assess the confidence of the management teams of 515 initial coin offerings (ICOs) by appraising their pictures. Controlling for venture and offering characteristics, we find a positive association between confidence and the fundraising amount. The results are robust to alternative estimation methods and other visual traits such as attractiveness and intelligence. Our study highlights the importance of using images as a channel to communicate with prospective investors in alternative finance.