Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

The Evolution Of Financing Structure In U.S. Startups, Carmen Cotei, Joseph Farhat

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

In this article we examine how startup businesses finance their operations over time. We employ the Latent growth modeling technique to test the financial growth cycle theory developed by Berger and Udell (1998). The data used in this study is the Kauffman Firm Survey, the largest longitudinal data set comprised of a random sample of U.S. startups launched in 2004 and surveyed annually through 2011. Consistent with the predictions of financial growth cycle theory, in the startup stage, entrepreneurs rely on initial insider capital sources such as personal savings, financing offered by friends and family, quasi-equity, and personal debt. Over …