• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.109-121
• /
• 2023

This paper examines whether angel investors affect startup's financial performance (profitability and growth ratios) in the Korean startup market over 10 years period from 2009 to 2018. In particular, we consider not only the behavior of angel investor such as the investment amount or the type of investments (stocks, bonds) but also the type of angle investor (individual or corporation). Our empirical results are as follows. First, we find that the startup's profitability ratios are higher after the investment of angel investors. However, the growth ratios show different results in assets and sales. Second, we identify that the investment amount of angel investors negatively affects on the startup's growth ratios. Lastly, we find that equity investment such as common stock or preferred stock and the individual angel investors such as personal investment association or professional angels show higher financial performance than bond investment or corporate angel investors. Overall, our findings imply that angel investors positively affect startup's financial performance. In particular, we infer that the superior financial performance is largely attributed to monitor startups by participating as shareholders or to select more carefully by the individual angel investors who may be exposed to more investment risk. In conclusion, our findings support that angel investors play a positive role in the Korean venture investment market.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.57-70
• /
• 2023

The investigation delved into 457 pieces of scholarly work, encompassing articles, published theses, and dissertations from the National Research Foundation of Korea, spanning the period of the 1997 IMF financial crisis up to 2022. The materials were sourced using terms such as 'angel investment', 'angel investor', and 'angel investment attraction'. The initial phase involved filtering out redundant entries from the preliminary collection of 267 works, leaving aside pieces that didn't pertain directly to angel investment as indicated in their abstracts. The next stage of the analysis involved a more rigorous selection process. Out of 43 papers earmarked in the preceding cut, only 32 were chosen. The criteria for this focused on the exclusion of conference presentations, articles that were either not submitted or inconclusive, and those that duplicated content under different titles. The final selection of 32 papers underwent a thorough systematic literature review. These documents, all pertinent to angel investment in South Korea, were scrutinized under five distinct categories: 1) publication year, 2) themes of research, 3) strategies employed in the studies, 4) participants involved in the research, and 5) methods of research utilized. This meticulous process illuminated the existing landscape of angel investment studies within Korea. Moreover, this study pinpointed gaps in the current body of research, offering guidance on future scholarly directions and proposing social scientific theories to further enrich the field of angel investment studies and analysis also seeks to pinpoint which areas require additional exploration to energize the field of angel investment moving forward. Through a comprehensive review of literature, this research intends to validate the establishment of future research trajectories and pinpoint areas that are currently and relatively underexplored in Korea's angel investment research stream. This study revealed that current research on domestic angel investment is concentrated on several areas: 1) the traits of angel investors, 2) the motivations behind angel investing, 3) startup ventures, 4) relevant institutions and policies, and 5) the various forms of angel investments. It was determined that there is a need to broaden the scope of research to aid in enhancing and stimulating the scale of domestic angel investing. This includes research into performance analysis of angel investments and detailed case studies in the field. Furthermore, the study emphasizes the importance of diversifying research efforts. Instead of solely focusing on specific factors like investment types, startups, accelerators, venture capital, and regulatory frameworks, there is a call for research that explores a variety of associated variables. These include aspects related to crowdfunding and return on investment in the context of angel investing, ensuring a more holistic approach to research in this domain. Specifically, there's a clear need for more detailed studies focusing on the relationships with variables that serve as dependent variables influencing the outcomes of angel investments. Moreover, it's essential to invigorate both qualitative and quantitative research that delves into the theoretical framework from multiple perspectives. This involves analyzing the structure of variables that have an impact on angel investments and the decisions surrounding these investments, thereby enriching the theoretical foundation of this field. Finally, we presented the direction of development for future research by confirming that the effect on the completeness of the business plan is high or low depending on the satisfaction of the entrepreneurs in addition to the components.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.47-61
• /
• 2014

Many angel investors hesitate to invest in early-stage company. Most early-stage company has no sales and only R&D step project or in early approach of market. So it's impossible to evaluate early-stage company quantitatively. Therefore many angel investors depend on CEO's tendency to evaluate company and make decision for investment. The purpose of this study is discover the entrepreneurial characteristics of CEO and the importance level which affect on the angel investors decision making factors for investment. To identify the factors of entrepreneurial characteristics, survey was conducted by Delphi Technique which is involved by 20 experts who is angel investment club members, venture capitalists, CEOs and officers. Three rounds of survey results derived 10 elements of entrepreneurial characteristics for investment decision making factors including reliability, risk sensitivity, passion, perseverance, integrity, leadership, startup experience, organizational management skills, innovation and social networking. In addition, this study derived the importance level of elements of entrepreneurial characteristics based on the AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) theory and maintained the logical consistency by pair-wise comparison for each element. As a result of analyzing the importance of entrepreneurial characteristics, the sequence is reliability (18.1%), integrity (15.9%), leadership (11.7%), organizational management skills (10.0%), social networking (9.5%), passion(9.1%), perseverance(8.4%), innovation(8.1%), startup experience(5.3%) and risk sensitivity(3.9%) respectively. The significance of this study is somewhat decrease limit of the uncertainty arising from angel investors and angel investors can help a decision making, by discover factors of entrepreneurial characteristics that can be called the biggest influencing factors among Investor's investment decision-making In early stage companies and compare importance.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.147-157
• /
• 2023

This paper investigates the financial factors affecting angel investors' investment decisions for 818 firms from 2009 to 2018 in the Korean venture investment market. We construct a quasi-experimental design using propensity scoring matching and compare the investment determinants between investment firms and matching firms. The main empirical findings are as follows. First, we find that angel investors are more likely to choose firms based on a firm's growth such as profit and assets rather than profitability or financial stability. In addition, we identify that they prefer the firm not only higher intangible assets but also higher R&D expenditures. Second, we find that angel investors consider both growth and activity ratios in the firms for over three years and have entered the mid-stage of startups. Overall, we confirm that the investment decision of angel investors mainly focuses on the venture startups' growth trend or future growth potential rather than the realized profitability or financial stability. We also infer that the possibility of performance creation is an important investment factor along with growth for the mid-stage startup.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.1-19
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this research is to improve the investment success rate for startups in the water industry for the development of the entrepreneurial environment of the Korean water industry. In this research, we identified investment determinants through prior research and stratified them, and then surveyed the investor group at the beginning of the start-up using the FGI method, and determined the order of the investment determinants of investors. At the same time, we classified 41 start-ups related to the water industry into two groups: the group that received investment and the group that did not in the early stages of the start-up. Then we investigated the understanding of the investor's investment determinants, ranked them, and compared them by using the AHP technique. Through this, this research proposes five implications. First, it is important for start-ups in the early stages to receive seed investment to revitalize investment for startups in the water industry. For this, startups need to understand investors and prepare to attract investment with the perspective of angel investors rather than the perspective of VC investors. Second, Start-ups in the water sector should consider that the characteristics of the founder are important in order to receive seed investment, and also need to define their business at the industry and market level, and provide relevant rationale to meet the expectations of investors who value industry expertise and experience, and to increase the possibility of seed investment, which is important in the early stages of a startup. Third, institutions, such as K-water(Korea Water Resources Corporation), that support water industry startups need to conduct open innovation business opportunities discovery programs linked to startups so that startups currently participating in the startup support program could have business opportunities from the business infrastructure of platform-forming companies in the water industry. In particular, such institutions should help founders develop their industrial expertise and careers by supporting this type of start-up preparation process through the participation of in-house venture founders. Fourth, when K-water uses the government start-up support fund to discover and foster founders, it should increase initial contact with seed investors, conduct more thorough verification of business plans, and develop programs that use government start-up support funds to prepare a business suitable for seed angel investors. Fifth, K-water should support seed by connecting funds for initial investment among funds operated by itself. It is also necessary to develop a program that links the company receiving the seed investment with VC investment, not angel investment in cooperation with the VC fund operation entity participating as an LP so that companies that have attracted seed investment could attract follow-up VC investment.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.18 no.9
• /
• pp.584-593
• /
• 2018

The startup, which is a common noun to start a small business, has been recently one of main targets for policymakers due to its important role for job creation and considerable potential for sustainability of an economy. However, technological entrepreneurship decreased by 5.0% p from 2013 to 2016. The revitalization of entrepreneurial investment promoted by the government is mainly supported in fruitable venture companies at grow stage or 2~3 years before IPO through venture capital firms and angel funds. It is far from an investment at start-up. It is therefore necessary to motivate private investment to be active in the private start-up sector. In addition, the start-up investment requires institutional support and government support to meet the expectations of investors about the possibility of payback and profitability of private investment invested in the founding period. As a small entrepreneur at a comparably early stage in the lifecycle of business, investments for the startup are generally made by informal investors such as family, friends and fools, and their decision making processes are relatively non-programmed compared with ones for listed corporales such as venture capital and angel fund agency. This study focuses on analyzing decision making factors in investment, and verifying an impact of such factors, specifically the possibility of investment payback and investment profitability, in a decision-making process for the startup especially at the very early stage.

• International Area Studies Review
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.167-186
• /
• 2018

In this paper try to derive some implications through comparative studies of accelerator in Korea and US centering on accelerator process model. In addition, the concept of accelerator is defined comprehensively through the existing literature study, and the accelerator program is focused on the accelerator process model. In the study, three Korea and America accelerators were selected and analyzed as follows. First, we discussed the definition of the accelerator, the configuration program, and the differences with existing organizations. Second, after selecting three representative companies among Korean and American accelerators, history, programs, achievements, characteristics, and limitations were derived. Third, based on the existing literature research, we compared the differences in appearance and performance between the six Korean and US accelerator companies using the table. Finally, the limitations and implications of domestic accelerators are described.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.25-32
• /
• 2019

The purpose of this study is to investigate how to make a proper investment in ICO in the market. Previously, companies used to borrow money from banks or to obtain investments from venture capital (VC) and angel investors, but now ICOs are used as a new type of funding and financing model. The ICO sells the tokens or coins created on the blockchain openly online to raise the necessary funds, and provides the market value by paying the tokens or coins as much as the investment amount. According to this study, the limitations of the ICO market are (1) difficulties in evaluating the company, (2) uncertainties in investments, (3) lack of legal safeguards, and (4) measures to secure corporate stability after recruitment. At present, there is no way to cope with this systematically since the ICO is not protected in the legal framework. Nevertheless, we investigated the ways to make proper investment in the existing ICO market. In investing in ICO, investors should (1) consider investment methods and profitability, and (2) verify and judge investment fraud through various channels (ex. Homepage, composition team profile, etc.) and make investments based on this. This study will contribute to the formation of a healthy ICO market by understanding the newly emerged ICO market and studying the considerations when investing in it, thereby contributing to the right investor training and reducing the mass production of consumer damages caused by fraud. The limitation of this study is that the domestic ICO has not yet been examined in the legal framework, so further research is needed when policy changes occur in the future.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.45-55
• /
• 2022

Accelerator is a private investment institution that provides startups with comprehensive solutions to solve various difficulties such as startup facilities, funds, commercialization, securing a market etc. In addition to the role of an investor as a new startup support model, accelerators have contributed much to improvement of business ability of startups through intensive mentoring. Considering that previous studies gave weight to the determinants of investment from the perspective of investors, this study made a comparative analysis on the relative importance of determinants of investment in startups among accelerators, investors and entrepreneurs through the method of AHP. Results show that accelerators and investors regard "managerial characteristics" of startups as of the highest importance, whereas entrepreneurs think that "market characteristics" of startups are the most important. The result stems from an empirical judgment from the perspective of investors that success of startups depends on the ability of entrepreneur, and it is considered that investors evaluated marketability of startups as the most important factor in consideration of investment payback period. The result is similar to the result of previous studies on the determinants of investment determinants of angel investors and venture capitals. This paper is expected to make a contribution to the advancement of investment decision-making model for accelerators to discover startups with high possibility to grow and achieve more in incubation and investment.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.125-146
• /
• 2013

Nowadays, the performance of the mobile game sales is influencing the ranking of game companies listed on KOSDAQ. In the meantime, venture capital companies had focused on online game. Recently, however, they have great interest in mobile games and mobile game companies. In addition, angel investors and accelerators are increasing investment for the mobile game companies. The most important issues for mobile game investor is how to evaluate the mobile game companies and their contents. Therefore, this study derived the evaluation factors for the mobile game company. And research method converged of the opinions of both supply side and demand side of the game industry. Ten professionals who are responsible for the supply of the game industry and CEO group & development experts of game development company were selected for survey in this study. Also ten professionals who are responsible for the demand of the game industry and the investment company were selected for survey in this study. And Delphi technique was performed according to the survey. Management skills, development capabilities, game play, feasibility, operational capabilities has emerged as five evaluation factors to evaluate the mobile game company. And the 20 sub-factors including CEO's reliability were derived. AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) theory is applied to analyze the importance of the qualitative elements which were derived by Delphi technique. As a result, the analysis hierarchy of evaluation factors for the mobile game company was created. Pair-wise comparison for each element was performed to analyze the importance. As a result, 'Core fun of the game' (12,2%), 'Involvement of the game' (10.3%), 'Security Reliability' (8.9%), 'Core developers' ability' (7.6%) appeared in order of importance. The significance of this study is offering more objective methodology for realistic assessment and importance of elements to evaluate mobile game company.