Founders vs. funders: masculinity contests in Silicon Wadi

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to examine how masculinity contest culture (MCC) manifests in Israel's high-tech startup ecosystem, focusing on relations between male startup founders and funders during early-stage capital acquisition. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative, phenomenological approach, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with male Israeli startup founders, analysing accounts of investor-facing interactions and masculinity's role in shaping them. Findings Dog-eat-dog dynamics complicated fundraising negotiations, particularly with domestic investors, where adversarial posturing and zero-sum logics undermined trust and heightened concerns over autonomy and governance. Founders responded through three strategies: strategic withdrawal, selective engagement and defensive pushback. A minority reported supportive relationships or attributed dysfunction to personality or structural factors. Masculinity contests were situational rather than hegemonic: dominant performances were mobilised tactically but confined to investor-facing encounters and rejected as leadership models and organisational norms, while non-participation functioned as deliberate, agentic boundary-setting rather than exclusion or marginalisation. Practical implications MCC may undermine Israel's “Scale-up Nation” ambitions by obstructing founders from building globally competitive companies domestically. Startups may fail not for lack of merit but because relational dysfunction during fundraising erodes trust or pushes founders to seek capital abroad. Originality/value This study extends MCC theory by situating masculinity contests at the proto-organisational stage of venture formation and offers a typology of founder responses, highlighting moral agency and refusal to reproduce contest norms as under-theorised areas.