Predicting Probability of Investment Based on Investor’s Facial Expression in a Startup Funding Pitch

Arya Tri Prabawa, Merel M. Jung, Kostas Stoitsas, Werner Liebregts, Itir Önal Ertuğrul

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Presenting an idea is a critical social interaction, especially in a startup funding pitch setting where initial investment is at stake. Understanding a listener’s facial expression can then become extremely valuable in informing the level of engagement reached by the presenter. Predicting engagement level in other settings, such as an online study environment, has been explored in previous research, but none have explored to what extent an investor’s facial expression can predict the investor’s engagement during a funding pitch and in return predict the investor’s probability to invest. In this study, we propose to use Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks along with facial action units (AUs), facial features extracted with Convolutional Neural Net- works (CNN), and the combination of both as features for automated prediction of probability of investment. The results show a promising prospect for the proposed LSTM models. Models using CNN features or combined AU and CNN features outperformed the AU-only model.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of BNAIC/BeNeLearn 2022
Number of pages11
Publication statusPublished - 7 Nov 2022

Keywords

  • Facial action units
  • Deep facial Feature Extraction
  • Entrepreneurial Pitches
  • Long short-term Memory Networks

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