One in three deals in the early-stage financing market involves an investor and founder from the same alma mater. We show that founders' connections to early-stage investors through shared education networks are more important than school academic quality or shared geography in facilitating...

Start-ups are seen as the leading force in dynamically growing economies. Limited financing opportunities often prevent entrepreneurs from realizing their innovative business ideas or taking growth opportunities. However, in the context of the technological revolution, a fundamental change in...

In this article we examine how startup businesses finance their operations over time. We employ the Latent growth modeling technique to test the financial growth cycle theory developed by Berger and Udell (1998). The data used in this study is the Kauffman Firm Survey, the largest longitudinal...

This paper aims to analyze the effects of financial constraints and the financial crisis on the financing and investment policies of newly founded firms. Thereby, the analysis adds important new insights on a crucial segment of the economy. We make use of a large and comprehensive data set of...

Italian startups financed by venture capitalists (VCs) experience a faster growth in size and become more innovative compared with other startups. VC-backed firms also show a much larger increase in equity and a reduction in their leverage. This evidence is obtained by comparing a representative...

What role does the selection of an investor and the timing of financing play in initial coin offerings (ICOs)? We investigate the operating and financial performance of ventures conducting ICOs with different types of investors at different points in the ventures' life cycle. We find that,...

From 2010 to 2021, 639 US VC-funded firms achieved unicorn status. We investigate why there are so many unicorns and why controlling shareholders give investors privileges to obtain unicorn status. We show that unicorns rely more than other VC-funded firms on organizational capital as well as...

We investigate entrepreneurial finance in an environment that was characterized by severe information problems and very weak investor protection. Despite these problems, new ventures could raise large amounts of equity and debt on the Belgian capital market between 1890 and 1914. Many of these...

Digitization dramatically changes entrepreneurs’ business models and their implications for the type and timing of finance that support them. It creates new financial channels (including crowd-investors and initial coin offerings) that complement, and in part substitute, traditional...

This study aims to investigate the effects of financial bootstrapping and government support on working capital, as well as the moderating role of entrepreneurial orientation towards the impact of working capital on financial performance. The study was conducted on 260 MSME owners in the food...