Essays in venture capital finance

Summary This thesis analyzes the financing contracts used by venture capital funds, the waves of investments made and the use of bridge loans. The first chapter presents a theoretical model of financing contracts. This model proposes a contract that offers more profit to the entrepreneur in order to create a less conflictive relationship, although the entrepreneur initially has more bargaining power. Most equity funds claim to make the initial investment in a company based on the analysis of the founding team and the size of the company's target market. By analyzing venture capital fund investments, we have been able to highlight the existence of waves of venture capital fund investments, similar to waves of mergers and acquisitions. The second chapter of this thesis analyzes the effects caused by these investment waves and the impact of the syndicate network on the success rate of the investments. We show that the investment syndicate network impacts the investment success rate. In the last chapter of this thesis, an analysis of the use of bridging loans was conducted due to its relatively high use by venture capital funds. The analysis showed that companies financed by bridging loans have low success rates (0.7%) and that venture capital funds using this type of instrument have a lower success rate in raising a new venture capital fund.