Startup Success Factors in the Capital Attraction Stage: Founders’ Perspective

Only a small percentage of startups attract capital from venture capital investors. To determine the factors which owners of startups consider the most important for attracting seed venture investments, the founders of 40 startups in Latvia and Russia were questioned. The researchers compared organizational and financial factors’ importance for two groups of entrepreneurs: those who succeeded and those who failed in attracting funding. The results of the study indicate certain differences between the viewpoints of founders and investors regarding success factors. Based on the factor and regression analysis, the authors developed a model to forecast success in capital attraction.     

The Volume of Venture Capital Funds of Latvia and Their Financing Sources

The venture capital funds （VCF） financing sources of Latvia are considered in this paper. In the course of the work, a comparison was made between VCF financing sources generally used in Europe, Central and Eastern Europe （CEE） countries, and Latvia. Based on the results of questionnaire of VCF partners, an investigation of sources and structure of the capital attracted by all of the Latvian VCF was performed. In process of the investigation, the following methods were applied： questionnaire, logical constructive method, and comparative analysis. Moreover, some VCs were interviewed. As a result, it has been revealed that as little as five financing sources exist in Latvia unlike Europe, where VCF have not less than 13 financing sources, and unlike CEE countries where the funds are supported by at least eight financing sources. The average size of a VCF in Latvia is 10.8 M EUR, which constitutes 35% of that of European VCF. Among the main reasons for a small size of Latvian VCF and a small number of types （classes） of their investors, the country＇s low financial appeal for VC and immaturity of some types of investors in Latvia can be mentioned. For that reason, the State has to compensate for a shortcoming of VC; as a result, the share percentage of social capital in VCF financing sources of Latvia has reached 76.2 % while all VCF of Latvia are hybrid.