Venture capital investments through the lens of network and functional data analysis

Abstract In this paper we characterize the performance of venture capital-backed firms based on their ability to attract investment. The aim study is identify relevant predictors success built from network structure firms’ and investors’ relations. Focusing deal-level data for health sector, first create a bipartite among investors, then apply functional analysis derive progressively more refined indicators captured by binary, scalar outcome. More specifically, use different centrality measures capture role early investments firm. Our results, which are robust specifications, suggest that has strong positive association with firm its large weaker but still detectable small investors features describing as knowledge bridges. Finally, our analyses, not associated spreading power (harmonic centrality), nor tightness community (clustering coefficient) (VoteRank).