Abstract: Despite the importance of a need for a more robust understanding of the new venture start-up process, there continues to be a disparity in the understanding of the critical pathway antecedents of start-up outcomes. Furthermore, research in nascent start-up outcomes rarely investigates the temporal dynamics associated with start-up outcomes. Therefore, he objective of this research is to address how start-up capital structure influences the time to either new firm founding or disbanding by applying pecking order theory of the firm. We analyze how start-up capital structure impacts the timing to start-up outcomes using competing risk event history analysis on a nationally representative sample of nascent entrepreneurs. Our findings suggest that external equity has an appreciable impact on new firm emergence.