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Who Needs Contracts? Generalized Exchange Within Investment Accelerators, Brad Bernthal

Marquette Law Review

This Article investigates why an expert volunteers on behalf of startups that participate in a novel type of small venture capital ("VC") fund known as a mentor-driven investment accelerator ("MDIA"). A MDIA organizes a pool of seasoned individuals - called "mentors" - to help new companies. An obvious organizational strategy would be to contract with mentors. Mentors instead voluntarily assist. Legal studies of norm-based exchanges do not explain what this Article calls the "mentorship conundrum" - i.e., the puzzling motivation of a mentor to volunteer within otherwise for-profit environments. This Article is the first to bridge the insights of generalized …