Do Venture Capitalists Give Founders Their Walking Papers?

Journal of Corporate Finance, Vol. 15, pp. 613–625, 2009

Posted: 19 Sep 2010

See all articles by Diana Heger

Diana Heger

IHS Economics

Tereza Tykvova

University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance; Swiss Finance Institute

Date Written: 2009

Abstract

We investigate the impact of venture capitalists on the turnover of executives within a sample of nearly 46,500 German high-tech start-up companies founded between 1995 and 2004. We confirm that the presence of VCs increases the chances that the company will change the structure of its initial executive team. For the purposes of our analysis, we distinguish between different types of changes (somebody is replaced, the team is enlarged, the team shrinks). Additionally, we take a closer look at the subsample of venture-backed companies.We find that a small distance between the VCs and the companies they finance, as well as a larger total stake in the company owned by the VCs, goes hand-in-hand with an increased probability of changes in the initial executive teams.

Keywords: Venture capital, Executive turnover

JEL Classification: G24, G32

Suggested Citation

Heger, Diana and Tykvova, Tereza, Do Venture Capitalists Give Founders Their Walking Papers? (2009). Journal of Corporate Finance, Vol. 15, pp. 613–625, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1678450

Diana Heger

IHS Economics ( email )

Bleichstr. 1
Frankfurt/Main
Germany

Tereza Tykvova (Contact Author)

University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance ( email )

Rosenbergstrasse 52
St. Gallen, CH-9000
Switzerland

Swiss Finance Institute ( email )

c/o University of Geneva
40, Bd du Pont-d'Arve
CH-1211 Geneva 4
Switzerland

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