The valuation of start-up firms is challenging, yet highly relevant for entrepreneurs and financiers alike. We reverse-engineer fair-value multiples by comparing the firm value at the time of financing with the firm value at the time of exit. Our framework produces reliable valuation multiples...

Because time is a key determinant of entrepreneurial decision making, time-to-event models are ubiquitous in entrepreneurship. Widespread econometric misconception, however, may cause complicated biases in existing studies. The reason is spurious duration dependency, a complicated form of...

This paper examines rent sharing in Private Investments in Public Equity (PIPEs) between newly public firms and private investors. The evidence suggests highly asymmetric rent sharing. Newly public firms earn a negative return of up to -15% in the first post-PIPE year, while investors benefit...

This paper examines the role of intermediation for the efficiency of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) markets for startups, with an application to Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). ICO intermediation is a contentious issue. Existing research fails to explain the trade-off between intermediated and...

We apply insights from research in social psychology and labor economics to the domain of entrepreneurial finance and investigate how founder chief executive officers’ (founder CEOs’) facial attractiveness influences firm valuation. Leveraging the novel context of initial coin offerings...