We explore the central role that top venture capitalists play in the IPO underwriting market. We argue that underwriters curry favor with Top VCs, not necessarily issuing firms, because Top VCs have the ability to direct the most business in a repeated game sense to banks that treat them well....

Before the IPO bubble burst, the first day return for IPOs backed by top VCs firms was double that of non-top VCs IPOs. Top VC IPOs were also twice as likely to receive all-star analyst coverage and suffered twice as large negative returns upon lockup expiration. We argue that this was not a...