The conventional wisdom is that entrepreneurs seek financing for their high-growth, high-risk start-up companies in a particular order. They begin with friends, family, and bootstrapping. Next they turn to angel investors, or accredited investors (and usually ex-entrepreneurs) who invest their...

This Article examines a third exit option in venture capital to supplement IPOs and trade sales: secondary markets for the sale of individual ownership interests in start-ups and venture capital (VC) funds. While investors can readily buy shares in publicly-traded companies, until recently they...

Venture debt, or loans to rapid-growth start-ups, is a puzzle. How are start-ups with no track records, positive cash flows, tangible collateral, or personal guarantees from entrepreneurs able to attract billions of dollars in loans each year? And why do start-ups take on debt rather than rely...

Crowdfunding has more in common with an initial public offering (IPO) than may be readily apparent. Both are coordinated sales of securities to public investors (in crowdfunding's case, the “crowd”). Both rely on disclosure to mitigate information asymmetries between a company and its...

Entrepreneurship fuels our innovation economy. Venture capitalists concentrated in Silicon Valley fund our most promising startups that become household names. As this Article explores, however, large corporations have entered the startup funding space, with significant consequences. This...

Why do corporations choose to incorporate in Delaware over other states? The existing literature primarily falls into two camps — the “race-to-the-top” and the “race-to-the-bottom” — both of which credit Delaware's success to the quality of its corporate law and the expertise of its...

The final crowdfunding rules took three years for the SEC to pass, but crowdfunding — the offering securities over the Internet — is now a reality. But now that crowdfunding is legal, will it be successful? Will crowdfunding be a regular means by which new companies raise money, or will it...

'Opportunity' is a central concept in entrepreneurship research, and this Article explores the relationship between law and entrepreneurial opportunities. We adopt the widely held view that entrepreneurial opportunities are ideas created by entrepreneurs, rather than resources waiting to be...

Angel investing is different than venture capital. It is about 'for-profit philanthropy', or giving back to the entrepreneurial community while also making a profit. Market and legal changes over the last decade have caused angels to migrate online and into professional groups, changing the...

Angel investors and venture capitalists (VCs) have funded Google, Facebook, and virtually every technological success of the last thirty years. These investors operate in tight geographic networks which mitigates uncertainty, information asymmetry, and agency costs both pre- and post-investment....