• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.17-32
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• 2023

In recent years, the need for social ventures that aim to grow while solving social problems through the efficiency and effectiveness of commercial organizations in the market has increased, while there is a limit to how much the government and the public can do to solve social problems. Against this background, the number of social venture startups is increasing in the domestic startup ecosystem, and interest in impact investors, which are investors in social ventures, is also increasing. Therefore, this research utilized judgment analysis technology to objectively analyze the validity and weight of judgment information based on the cognitive process and decision-making environment in the investment decision-making of impact investors. We proceeded with the research by constructing three classifications; first, investment priorities at the initial investment stage for financial benefit and return on investment as an investor, second, the political skills of the entrepreneurs (teams) for the social impact and ripple power, and social venture coexistence and solidarity, third, the social mission of a social venture that meets the purpose of an impact investment fund. As a result of this research, first of all, the investment decision-making priorities of impact investors are the expertise of the entrepreneur (team), the potential rate of return when the entrepreneur (team) succeeds, and the social mission of the entrepreneur (team). Second, impact investors do not have a uniform understanding of the investment decision-making factors, and the factors that determine investment decisions are different, and there are differences in the degree of the weighting. Third, among the various investment decision-making factors of impact investment, "entrepreneur's (team's) networking ability", "entrepreneur's (team's) social insight", "entrepreneur's (team's) interpersonal influence" was relatively lower than the other four factors. The practical contribution through this research is to help social ventures understand the investment determinant factors of impact investors in the process of financing, and impact investors can be expected to improve the quality of investment decision-making by referring to the judgment cases and analysis of impact investors. The academic contribution is that it empirically investigated the investment priorities and weighting differences of impact investors.