Unreliable evidence: why investors misjudge the technological expertise of founders of high technology ventures

We report the reflections of five venture capitalists and five business angels drawn from US, the UK, and Israel on their evaluation criteria for early stage high tech investments and their interpretations of selected prior research related to evaluation of founder's human capital. We found that these early stage high tech investors tended to focus on harvest potential and miss factors that predict early survival and growth. The interviews confirmed a gap between in use and espoused criteria, and extensive use of gut feeling in decision-making. We offer criteria that investors could consider to improve their funding decision processes.