• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.18 no.7
• /
• pp.135-148
• /
• 2020

Even after successful technology development, there are many cases where commercialization fails due to difficulties in financing in the early stages of commercialization. The purpose of this study is to give practical implications to technology-based founders. At the beginning of commercialization, 7 companies that succeeded in procuring different types of external funds were selected to conduct case analysis. The results are as follow. First, it was confirmed that the excellence of technology is the most important. Second, it was confirmed that they were majors in the relevant technology field or have worked in related fields, and concluded that greater synergy effect can be created by adding the founder's business will and active attitude. Third, even if the company's internal capabilities were insufficient, it was possible to succeed in financing by identifying and utilizing external financial information. Fourth, it is necessary to utilize a linked financial system that receives both loans and investments. Fifth, systematic IR (Investor Relation) should be continued.

• 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.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.308-338
• /
• 2020

The entrepreneurial journey is not short of challenges, and about 90% + tech start-ups experience failure (Startup Genome, 2019). The magnitude of the challenges varies across the tech start-up lifecycle stages, namely emergence, stability, and growth. This opens the research question, do the profiles of a start-up and its co-founder impact start-up success or failure across its lifecycle stages? This study aims to understand and identify the profiles of tech start-ups and their co-founders. We gathered primary data from 151 start-ups (Status: 101 failed and 50 successful ones), and they are across different lifecycle stages and represent six major start-up hubs in India. The chi-square test on status and start-up's lifecycle stage indicates a noticeable correlation, and they are not independent. The Kruskal Wallis test was used to distinguish statistically significant profile attributes. The parameters distinguishing success and failure are identified, and the need to deliver customer experience is emphasized by the start-up profile attributes: Product/service, high-tech nature of a start-up, investor fund availed, co-founder experience, and employee count. The importance of entrepreneurial experience is ascertained with entrepreneur profile attributes: Entrepreneurial expertise, the number of prior and current start-ups, their willingness to start again in the event of failure, and age of co-founder, which is a proxy to learning and experience. This study has implications for entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
• /
• v.20 no.spc1
• /
• pp.45-55
• /
• 2024

Amidst the challenges of the global economy, this paper examines the investment tendencies of professional angel investors, who provide venture capital and management consulting, and explores strategies to revitalize angel investment. According to the research findings, professional angel investors are generally older and more educated than regular angel investors, and they are concentrated in the metropolitan region. Additionally, their investment performance before and after registration remains similar, with investment amounts concentrated between 50 million and 100 million won. Their investment portfolios focus on ICT services, bio/medical, and distribution/service sectors. Based on these findings, policy and institutional support measures are required to revitalize angel investment, including easing registration requirements for professional angel investors, expanding tax benefits related to angel investment, strengthening the provision of information and education related to angel investment, and enhancing angel investment networking. This study is expected to contribute to the revitalization of the venture startup ecosystem and economic growth through the revitalization of angel 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.

• 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.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.19 no.2
• /
• pp.1-11
• /
• 2024

In the midst of the current turbulent global economy, traditional investment metrics are undergoing a metamorphosis, signaling the onset of what's often referred to as an "Investment cold season". Early-stage startups, despite their boundless potential, grapple with immediate revenue constraints, intensifying their pursuit of critical investments. While financial indicators once took center stage in investment evaluations, a notable paradigm shift is underway. Organizational culture, once relegated to the sidelines, has now emerged as a linchpin in forecasting a startup's resilience and enduring trajectory. Our comprehensive research, integrating insights from CVF and OCAI, unveils the intricate relationship between organizational culture and its magnetic appeal to investors. The results indicate that startups with a pronounced external focus, expertly balanced with flexibility and stability, hold particular allure for investment consideration. Furthermore, the study underscores the pivotal role of adhocracy and market-driven mindsets in shaping investment desirability. A significant observation emerges from the study: startups, whether they secured investment or failed to do so, consistently display strong clan culture, highlighting the widespread importance of nurturing a positive employee environment. Leadership deeply anchored in market culture, combined with an unwavering commitment to innovation and harmonious organizational practices, emerges as a potent recipe for attracting investor attention. Our model, with an impressive 88.3% predictive accuracy, serves as a guiding light for startups and astute investors, illuminating the intricate interplay of culture and investment success in today's economic landscape.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.109-124
• /
• 2024

The value of platform companies is rapidly increasing, exerting significant influence across industries. Identifying and fostering promising platform companies is crucial for enhancing national competitiveness. Consequently, tailored evaluation standards are necessary for such companies. This study derived investment decision factors specific to platform companies and compared the importance of each factor using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis. Key factors included platform characteristics, finance, entrepreneur (team), market, and product/service attributes. The findings revealed that platform characteristics were deemed the most crucial factor for investors. Specifically, factors such as platform size, ease of value fixation, core participant group, and data value were identified as pertinent for evaluating platform companies. Moreover, analysis distinguished between investors with prior platform investment experience and those without. Significantly, investors with platform investment experience placed greater emphasis on the value of data secured by platform Furthermore, it was observed that investors prioritized future value and growth potential over current value when investing in platform. Notably, founder/team characteristics, typically highly regarded in previous studies, ranked lower in importance in this study, highlighting a shift in focus. The discrepancy between this study's results and prior research on investment decision factors is attributed to the specificity of the questions posed. By focusing on investment decision factors for platform startups rather than generic startup inquiries, investor responses aligned more closely with platform-focused considerations. Given the burgeoning venture investment landscape, there's a growing need for detailed research on startups within specific sectors like IT, travel, and biotech. This approach can replace extensive research covering all startup types to identify investment decision factors suited to the characteristics of each individual industry.