On the role of inexperienced venture capitalists in taking companies public

Abstract

We use venture-backed initial public offerings (IPOs) to identify and examine the comparative advantage of inexperienced venture capitalists. We argue that, vis-a-vis more established counterparts, younger venture capital firms have a comparative advantage at producing soft information about relatively opaque start-up companies due to their organizational structure. We then quantify an outcome—IPO initial return—from the matching of venture capitalists and start-up companies that demonstrates how this comparative advantage arises. Our findings thus reveal an important aspect of how inexperienced venture capitalists support start-up companies.