Venture capital investment selection: an exploratory assessment of the role of entrepreneur personality traits

Job J. Andreoli and Johannes A. ten Rouwelaar

Venture Capital, 2024, vol. 26, issue 2, 163-189

Abstract: The objective of this study is to investigate which entrepreneur traits are preferred by venture capitalists (VCs) in their investment selection for funds with financial and impact goals. This explorative study draws on the Big-Five framework in management, connects these with VCs’ investment selections and assesses VCs’ biases using newly gathered empirical data from VCs in the Netherlands. Our results reveal that financial and impact VCs portfolios seem to confirm the importance of education and experience and seek distinct entrepreneur personality traits. This study shows that, in addition to considering the traditional hard traits, entrepreneur soft traits influence the selection process and are impacted by a VC fund’s purpose. The findings on the entrepreneur personality traits may help to give substance to the often alluded to “gut feeling” of VCs in investment decisions.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/13691066.2023.2234085

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