Choosing a Business Partner, Best Friend, and a Spouse : An Exploratory Study of the Evaluation of New Venture Teams by Nordic Venture Capitalists

Abstract: Background: There has been a great effort in the venture capital research community in trying to identify what criteria are used by venture capital firms (VCFs) when evaluating new ventures as an investment opportunity. Efforts have also been put on trying to rank these criteria’s importance in relation to each other, with the main literature arguing that the new venture team (NVT) has the greatest influence over the VCF’s investment decision. Although there is scientific consensus regarding the superior importance of the NVT relative to other criteria, the practical methods used by VCFs to evaluate the NVT is highly underexplored. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the decision process and evaluation of NVTs by VCFs in the Nordic venture capital industry. Method: A qualitative method with an inductive approach conducted through semi-structured interviews with seven relevant industry professionals within the Nordic venture capital space. Conclusion: The findings suggest that the evaluation of NVTs follows a linear process of five sequential phases. Ten practical evaluation methods are identified as being used in the five phases of the process. The evaluation of specific NVT sub-criteria is found to be influenced by the availability of methods of evaluation in a respective phase of the process. Furthermore, it is found that the first phase of the process can only evaluate hard NVT sub-criteria, and that to evaluate soft sub-criteria, methods underlined by personal interaction between the two involved parties are necessary. The findings are synchronized into a framework depicting the dynamics of the NVT evaluation process and temporality of the NVT sub-criteria.