You will find no meaningful statistical evidence because it can't be done -- programming languages don't write software. Programmers do -- and programmers are

You will find no meaningful statistical evidence because it can't be done -- programming languages don't write software. Programmers do -- and programmers are made of meat. A bad programmer using Lisp will be less successful than a good programmer using PHP. And startups almost universally (regardless of the back-justifications they come up with) choose programming languages based on fashion: Résumé driven development. The successful programming language for a startup is one that the product can be built in -- and that investors will not be alarmed by. PHP would not be alarming at all to many investors -- so PHP is a decent choice if you intend to sell your company off anyway.