Matching startup founders to investors : a tool and a study

The process of matching startup founders with venture capital investors is a necessary first step for many modern technology companies, yet there have been few attempts to study the characteristics of the two parties and their interactions. Surprisingly little has been shown quantitatively about the process, and many of the common assumptions are based on anecdotal evidence. In this thesis, we aim to learn more about the matching component of the startup fundraising process. We begin with a tool (VCWiz), created from the current set of best-practices to help inexperienced founders navigate the founder-investor matching process. The goal of this tool is to increase efficiency and equitability, while collecting data to inform further studies. We use this data, combined with public data on venture investments in the USA, to draw conclusions about the characteristics of venture financing rounds. Finally, we explore the communication data contributed to the tool by founders who are actively fundraising, and use it to learn which social attributes are most beneficial for individuals to possess when soliciting investments.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Mohamedali, Yasyf

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John V. Guttag and Rei Wang.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119731

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/119731