Experienced entrepreneurial founders, organizational capital, and venture capital funding

Abstract

This paper empirically investigates the sourcing and valuation of venture capital (VC) funding among entrepreneurs with varied levels of prior start-up founding experience, academic training, and social capital. Social ties with VCs have been identified as an important precursor to organizational resource attainment and performance, and so this study analyzes the correlates of heterogeneous social links with VCs. I also examine venture valuation, as it reflects enterprise quality and entrepreneurs’ cost of financial capital. Using data from a survey of 149 early stage technology-based start-up firms, I find several notable results. First, prior founding experience (especially financially successful experience) increases both the likelihood of VC funding via a direct tie and venture valuation. Second, founders’ ability to recruit executives via their own social network (as opposed to the VC's network) is positively associated with venture valuation. Finally, in the emerging (at the time) Internet industry, founding teams with a doctoral degree holder are more likely to be funded via a direct VC tie and receive higher valuations, suggesting a signaling effect. The paper therefore underscores some important dimensions of heterogeneity among VC-backed entrepreneurs.