Explaining venture capital firms’ syndication behavior: A longitudinal study

Using a unique methodological approach, we examine factors related to venture capital firms’ (VCFs’) involvement in syndication. We argue that VCFs’ investment strategy matters in terms of the extent to which VCFs engage in syndication. We test several hypotheses pertaining to VCFs’ syndication behavior based on a longitudinal data set of realized strategies of 200 U.S.-based VCFs over a twelve-year period. Overall, we find support for both knowledge-based and financial arguments for why VCFs engage in syndication. We discuss our results and provide avenues for future research.