Résumé (EN)

Although the volatility of the venture capital industry is well known, it is not known if investing in a wave or outside of a wave results in better or worse performance. In this paper, we investigated, in an investment wave context, the relationship between the timing of a venture capital investment and its performance. We argue that investments made before a wave, or early in a wave, provided a higher probability of success relative to those made in a wave or in any other period. We show that venture capitalists, with industry experience and high specialization, were more likely to invest earlier in waves when the VC were well connected to investors in an industry by a social network. Without industry connections, they delayed their investments, to within the wave, which had a lower success rate.