Effects of syndication on investment performance

Diken, Ozan; Henderson, Dominic

Effects of syndication on investment performance

License

Citation

Diken, O, Henderson, D. Effects of syndication on investment performance. 2020. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46373

This citation was generated automatically.

Abstract

In venture capital, two or more venture capitalists (VC) often form syndicates to participate in the same financing rounds. Historically, syndicated investments have been found to have a positive effect on the investment performance. The paper provides insight into the effects of syndication on the likelihood of a successful exit for the venture-backed firm. It addresses the possible driving components such as the composition of the syndicates and, in particular, the internal investment funds being classed as external firms in two of the four models proposed, as well as a relaxation on the definition of investment round. One of the main conclusions is that in the analysis, using the chance of exiting and money in minus money out as success factors, syndication coefficients across all models are shown to have a higher chance of exiting. This supports the Value-add hypothesis and opposes the alternative, the Selection hypothesis, as it proposes that syndicated VC firms bring varying expertise to the project in order to increase the success factors post-investment. The paper advises to proceed with caution as the story is not consistent across the analysis.