Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2013
Publication Citation
98 Cornell Law Review 1319 (2013)
Abstract
Venture capitalists (VCs) usually exit their investments in a startup via a trade sale. But the entrepreneurial team – the startup’s founder, other executives, and common shareholders – may resist a trade sale. Such resistance is likely to be particularly intense when the sale price is low relative to VCs’ liquidation preferences. Using a hand-collected dataset of Silicon Valley firms, we investigate how VCs overcome such resistance. We find, in our sample, that VCs give bribes (carrots) to the entrepreneurial team in 45% of trade sales; in these sales, carrots total an average of 9% of deal value. The overt use of coercive tools (sticks) occurs, but only rarely. Our study sheds light on important but underexplored aspects of corporate governance in VC-backed startups and the venture capital ecosystem.
Recommended Citation
Broughman, Brian J. and Fried, Jesse M., "Carrots and Sticks: How VCs Induce Entrepreneurial Teams to Sell Startups" (2013). Articles by Maurer Faculty. 1282.
https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facpub/1282
Included in
Business Organizations Law Commons, Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons