Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital

We are extremely grateful to Shai Bernstein, Tony Cookson, Marco Da Rin, Lora Dimitrova, Joan Farre-Mensa, Brent Goldfarb, Yael Hochberg, David Hsu, Ross Levine, Tom Nicholas, Scott Stern, Ayako Yasuda and the participants at the NBER conference on The Changing Financing Market for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Academy of Management, the 5th HEC Entrepreneurship Workshop, the Economics of Strategy Workshop at NYU, the 5th Entrepreneurial Finance and Innovation Conference, Western Finance Association 2016, European Finance Assoc. 2016, FOM Conference 2016, UC Berkeley, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Arizona State University, Drexel University, Boston University, University of Rochester, University of Michigan, Oxford University and Vanderbilt University for helpful comments. The authors thank VentureSource and Correlation Ventures for access to their data. Ewens and Rhodes-Kropf are advisors to and investors in Correlation Ventures. Ewens recognizes the support of the Kauffman Foundation Junior Faculty Fellowship. All errors are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.