IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/17258.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Micro VC

Author

Listed:
  • Amore, Mario Daniele
  • Conti, Annamaria
  • Pelucco, Valerio

Abstract

Using a large dataset of US investors and their portfolio startups, we analyze the phenomenon of micro VC investors, that is, VC firms managing funds smaller than $50 million. We show that investments by micro VCs have increased at a much steeper rate than those by traditional VCs during 2010-2020. We find significant differences between micro and traditional VCs beyond fund size. Micro VCs invest in early-stage startups more than traditional VCs do. Despite the greater risk of such investments, micro VCs use staged financing less frequently than traditional VCs. Additionally, micro VCs invest in geographically closer startups but their investments span a larger set of industries than traditional VCs. Examining the implications for portfolio startups, we find that startups financed by micro VCs raise less capital than those funded by traditional VCs and are less likely to exit via IPO or acquisition. These results are more pronounced when micro VCs are led by former entrepreneurs and are, at least in part, ascribed to the more founder-friendly management style of micro VCs.

Suggested Citation

  • Amore, Mario Daniele & Conti, Annamaria & Pelucco, Valerio, 2022. "Micro VC," CEPR Discussion Papers 17258, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17258
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP17258
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Venture capital; Early-stage investment; Fund size; Performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17258. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.