The pre- and post-investment relationship between angel investors and entrepreneurs: the scope and impact of information problems and conflicts

Funded by the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek), Brussels, Belgiu

Rising star monitor: providing insight into remuneration and founding team composition of young, high-potential Belgian ventures

This report provides a snapshot of the trends and challenges involved in young, high-potential ventures in Belgium. Our insights are based on data gathered from 170 young, high-potential Belgian ventures with 370 founders in a wide cross-section of industries. For a more detailed understanding, we have –where relevant– split up our results for high- versus low-growth ambition ventures (HGV versus LGV). Indeed, even though all sampled ventures show some indication of having high growth potential, only around one third of our respondents also indicated having a high growth ambition in terms of their aspired future company size. This group corresponds to what is now often referred to as scale-ups. Hence, potential does not necessarily equal ambition. In this Monitor, we pay special attention to the topics of founding team composition, their equity split and remuneration.2 As such, it is the first study to provide insight into questions such as how many founders young, high-potential Belgian ventures have, where co-founders are found, how founding teams split their equity and what equity stake they retain. We also provide detailed information on founders’ cash remuneration (e.g., as related to company size and industry)

Equity crowdfunding, shareholder structures, and firm performance

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Research question/issue: This paper provides a first-time glimpse into the postcampaign financial and innovative performance of equity-crowdfunded (ECF) and matched nonequity-crowdfunded (NECF) firms. We further investigate how direct and nominee shareholder structures in ECF firms are associated with firm performance. Research findings/insights: We find that ECF firms have 8.5 times higher failure rates than matched NECF firms. However, 3.4 times more ECF firms have patent applications than matched NECF firms. Within the group of ECF firms, we find that ECF firms financed through a nominee structure make smaller losses, whereas ECF firms financed through a direct shareholder structure have more new patent applications, including foreign patent applications. Theoretical/academic implications: Our findings suggest that there are important adverse selection issues on equity crowdfunding platforms, although these platforms also serve as a catalyst for innovative activities. Moreover, our findings suggest that there is a more complex relationship between dispersed versus concentrated crowd shareholders and firm performance than currently assumed in the literature. Practitioner/policy implications: For policy makers and crowdfunding platforms, investor protection against adverse selection will be important to ensure the sustainability of equity crowdfunding markets. For entrepreneurs and crowd investors, our study highlights how equity crowdfunding and the adopted shareholder structure relate to short-term firm performance.Research Foundation—Flander

First-round valuation of angel-backed companies: the role of investor human capital

In this first paper of the special issue, we identify some trends in open innovation research by analysing how the literature on this topics has evolved since the introduction of the concept in 2003. Research on open innovation has been mushrooming ever since and the scope has been broadened in different directions. Researchers also started to analyse open innovation at different level of analysis from the individual actors in organisations to ecosystems and national innovation systems. Despite the vast growth in research on open innovation, we identified several directions for further research: open innovation research should be linked to other management areas such as marketing, HRM, change management, etc. In addition, our understanding of open innovation could be improved if the recently developed insights could be related to the existing management theories

What every entrepreneur should know about growing his business: Six insights from our experts

Vlerick business experts work across all sectors and with businesses at many different stages of growth. They are renowned in the fields of finance, strategy, entrepreneurship, people and reward management, and many more. In this paper our 6 Vlerick experts each give one key insight for growing your business

Relocation to get venture capital : a resource dependence perspective

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE via the DOI in this record.Using a resource dependence perspective, we theorize and show that non-venture-capital-backed ventures founded in U.S. states with a lower availability of venture capital (VC) are more likely to relocate to California (CA) or Massachusetts (MA)—the two VC richest states—compared to ventures founded in states with a greater availability of VC. Moreover, controlling for self-selection, ventures that relocate to CA or MA subsequently have a greater probability of attracting initial VC compared to ventures that stay in their home state. We discuss the implications for theory, future research, and practice