Busy Venture Capitalists and Investment Performance

97 Pages Posted: 19 Mar 2019 Last revised: 26 Dec 2023

See all articles by Rustam Abuzov

Rustam Abuzov

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

Date Written: March 15, 2019

Abstract

While existing studies confirm venture capitalists’ (VCs) monitoring ability, evidence of their screening ability remains inconclusive. To confirm VCs’ screening role, I build on within-individual variation in VC partners’ workload and attention stemming from engagement in their portfolio companies’ IPOs. I find that when VCs are busy and distracted, they tend to make underperforming investments. The effects are stronger in cases of higher workload intensity and higher information asymmetry. These results speak to the importance of screening for generating venture capital returns, and point to the meaningful economic tradeoff between engaging with existing companies and screening of new startups.

Keywords: venture capital, IPO, monitoring, screening, investment performance

JEL Classification: G11, G24, M13, O31

Suggested Citation

Abuzov, Rustam, Busy Venture Capitalists and Investment Performance (March 15, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3353343 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3353343

Rustam Abuzov (Contact Author)

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States

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