The role of the exit in the initial screening of investment opportunities: The case of business angel syndicate gatekeepers

The exit process has been largely ignored in business angel research.. The practitioner community identifies the difficulty in achieving exits as the most pressing problem for investors. This has been attributed to the failure of investors to adopt an exit-centric approach to investing. The validity of this claim is examined via a study of the investment approach of 21 ‘gatekeepers’ (managers) of angel groups in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Most gatekeepers say that they do consider the exit when they invest. However, this is contradicted by a verbal protocol analysis which indicates that the exit is not a significant consideration in their initial screening process. The small number of exits achieved by the groups is consistent with the general lack of an exit-centric approach to investing. Only three groups exhibit evidence of a strong exit-centric approach to investing. The lack of exits may have a negative impact on the level of future angel investment activity

The impact of digital start-up founders’ higher education on reaching equity investment milestones

This paper builds on human capital theory to assess the importance of formal education among graduate entrepreneurs. Using a sample of 4.953 digital start-ups the paper evaluates the impact of start-up founding teams’ higher education on the probability of securing equity investment and subsequent exit for investors. The main findings are: (1), teams with a founder that has a technical education are less likely to remain self-financed and are more likely to secure equity investment and to exit, but the impact of technical education declines with higher level degrees, (2) teams with a founder that has doctoral level business education are less likely to remain self-financed and have a higher probability of securing equity investment, while undergraduate and postgraduate business education have no significant effect, and (3) teams with a founder that has an undergraduate general education (arts and humanities) are less likely to remain self-financed and are more likely to secure equity investment and exit while postgraduate and doctoral general education have no significant effect on securing equity investment and exit. The findings enhance our understanding of factors that influence digital start-ups achieving equity milestones by showing the heterogeneous influence of different types of higher education, and therefore human capital, on new ventures achieving equity milestones. The results suggest that researchers and policy-makers should extend their consideration of universities entrepreneurial activity to include the development of human capital

Business angel exits: A theory of planned behaviour perspective

Although there are a handful of studies on business angel investment returns, the business angel literature has given little or no attention to exits and the exit strategy. This is surprising given that a primary objective of investing is to achieve a capital gain through some form of liquidity event. Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as an interpretative heuristic, we examine how exits happen: specifically, what are the motivations to seek an exit and to what extent are they planned or opportunistic? Based on multiple case studies in which business angels were invited to tell the story of their most recent exit(s), the evidence suggests that the majority of liquidity events are the outcome of planned behaviour. We propose a typology of angel-backed investment exits as the basis for identifying future directions for research and developing practical advice to angels on effective business practices

Angel investor's selection criteria: a comparative institutional perspective

Despite the important role of angel investors as critical financial providers for new ventures, little is known regarding how institutions make their investment decisions. While angels make decisions based on selection criteria during the first stage, they are also embedded within and affected by different institutional settings and as a result weight these criteria differently than other investors. We compare angel investors' selection criteria in China and Denmark using the comparative institutional perspective. We use a policy capturing approach and hierarchy linear modeling, revealing that since Chinese angels are embedded within relationship-based institutional settings they tend to reply more on strong ties such as family and friends in management team, as well as weighting risks less compared to Danish angels operating within more rule-based institutional contexts

Business performance and angels presence: A fresh look from France 2008–2011

Business angels enjoy a strong reputation for being more efficient than other investors among policy makers, practitioners, and scholars. However, due to the limited availability of specific financial data, previous research has barely assessed the impact of angels on companies’ performance. This paper seeks to bridge this gap by providing evidence from a unique dataset made up of 432 angel-backed French companies which are compared to two control groups, one randomly selected and another one consisting of similar enterprises. This double comparison process enables us to purge our analysis of structural effect and to demonstrate the importance of the methodology in generating the sample. Indeed, the results we obtain significantly differ depending on the control group. Our results show that the positive influence of angels depends on the condition of the comparison. The set of BA-backed companies is more likely to exhibit superior performance when it is compared to a random sample whereas the companies’ performance is either identical or worse when it is compared to a sample composed of k-nearest neighbors. In addition, using a quantile regression technique makes it possible to differentiate the effect of business angels based on the distribution of the value of the growth rate. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media New York

Lithographic process simulation for scanners

In scanner systems wafer and reticle move continuously with respect to the projection optics. This movement across image field results in varying lateral shift and focus positions and in an averaging of aberrations from different positions of the projection system. Several approaches for the effective simulation of these effects are discussed. Based on simulated and experimental data, scanner effects are quantified and compared to results of static stepper exposure