• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2022

This paper examines the influence of the portion of lead investors and investors' status on the investment performance of venture syndication. According to existing literature, multiple investors in VC syndicates can positively impact investment performance by investing both tangible and intangible resources in target companies based on market influence or high visibility. On the other hand, the presence of multiple leaders can cause conflicts in formulating and implementing investment strategy or free-riding problems or increase entry barriers for potential investors, lowering additional investment from existing investors. Therefore, we hypothesize that the relationship between proportion of lead investors and investment performance is inverted-U shape. Moreover, we predict that the status of VCs in the syndication will moderate the relationship between proportion of lead investors and investment performance since high-status actors are less likely to cooperate with or yield power to others. We tested these hypotheses using 24,677 VC syndicated investment data from 1991 to 2005 and found solid supports for the hypotheses. The findings suggest that firms need to consider relationship-based power dynamics among investors within a syndication and design effective role setting and coordination systems.