• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.119-130
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• 2019

Although a well-established line of research has addressed the funding decision, the activities of investee startups to receive funding have been overlooked because prior research has been conduced from investor's point of view. In addition, funding does not result from one off decisions but from decision process with many stages. Moreover, the emphasis placed on specific investment criteria varies by different stages during the process. Therefore, understanding the initial funding of startups requires to analyze the strategic behaviors of startups throughout the entire funding decision process from first meeting with investors to funding success. This study investigates the initial funding process of startups, and the analysis is based on a case study of LetinAR one of the successful startups founded by students in South Korea. This study investigates how early start-ups were able to receive funding from startup's point of view, and the analysis is based on a case study of LetinAR, an augmented reality(AR) startup using Pin mirror technology. By adding "legitimacy building" stage that had not been addressed previously, we divided funding process into four stages: 1) legitimacy building, 2) familiarization, 3) screening, and 4) bargaining phase. We did not only analyze major criteria, but also strategic activities of startup at each stage. This study makes a contribution by helping us understand complicated process of funding and the successful strategic behavior of investor backed startups.