Financing Unquoted High-Growth Companies: From Extending

firms that appear more frequently in the media also exhibit higher growth across time. The initial
decision from whom to raise finance influences the ability of entrepreneurial ventures to attract
employees and mobilize assets and this for up to five years after the initial decision. Hence, more
financial resources are not necessarily better; at least as important is the source from which ventures
raise finance.
The third study demonstrates how more experienced investors not necessarily have access to
entrepreneurial companies with the highest growth potential. This is because entrepreneurs typically
limit their search for finance to one or a few investors and refrain from having loose contacts with
many potential investors. The search for early finance is local and entrepreneurs generally search
finance from investors they know from prior work experiences or investors that have an indirect tie
with the company, such as university spin-offs who restrict their search for finance to the university
fund. Initial differences in the finance process have a long-term impact on subsequent finance
decisions. Companies that raise early finance from experienced investors typically raise large amounts
of follow-on finance from other experienced investors, while companies that raise early finance from
relatively inexperienced investors attract limited amounts of follow-on finance from other
inexperienced investors. We theorize on the processes that cause early differences in the finance
process to persist across time.
Overall, the three studies indicate how our knowledge on financial decision-making may benefit from
using an evolutionary lens. In such a perspective resource scarcity creates selection environments
within which investors decide to invest in the companies that best fit within the environment.
Nevertheless, the different studies in this dissertation demonstrate how entrepreneurs themselves also
select their ventures as candidates for receiving finance from particular investors. While these findings
confirm recent research, they also extend them in an important way by demonstrating how the role of
entrepreneurs is more important than merely deciding whether they want to raise outside finance or
not. Moreover, the studies demonstrate how early differences between companies persist across time.
Early finance decisions are likely to influence subsequent finance decisions and even affect company
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