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Review of Finance Vol. 18 No. 5 2014

Dealing with Venture Capitalists: Shopping Around or Exclusive Negotiation

Catherine Casamatta; Carole Haritchabalet

1 Toulouse School of Economics (CRM-UT1 & IDEI) and 2University of Pau (CATT)

open access

Abstract

We study the fund-raising strategy of an entrepreneur when investors have private information about his project’s profitability. The entrepreneur cares about monetary profits and about the probability to obtain financing. If he contacts both venture capitalists (VCs) simultaneously, he obtains high monetary profits. If he commits to a period of exclusive negotiation with one VC, he increases the probability to obtain financing but deal terms deteriorate. The optimal negotiation strategy results from this tradeoff. We also solve for the equilibrium financial contracts and obtain implications for VCs’ portfolios and entrepreneurs’ deals.

DOI
10.1093/rof/rft040
Volume
18
Issue
5
Pages
1743-1773
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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