Financiers in early-stage entrepreneurial finance are known for their "spray-and-pray" approach, where they fund multiple start-ups expecting profits on a few to compensate losses on a lot of failed ones. We develop a theoretical framework in which financiers compete to fund entrepreneurs in an...

This study develops a parsimonious theoretical model to investigate the pecking order in financing for start-up ventures, especially with convertible securities, under adverse selection where a firm’s investment possibly has a negative value. While the role of convertible securities is limited...

This paper builds a directed search model with asymmetric information and argues that small firms hold liquid assets not only to self-finance investment but also to show their investment quality to obtain better loan terms. Because self-finance is an outside option of borrowing, it affects bank...