Conference Time: 5th July 2025, 09:18:16am EEST
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Session 2.01: What Do Early Stage Investors Ask? An LLM Analysis of Expert Calls
Time:
Tuesday, 26/Aug/2025:
9:00am - 9:30am
Location: Carmen Conference hall Meeting hall “Carmen”, which can accommodate up to 70 people
Presentations
What Do Early Stage Investors Ask? An LLM Analysis of Expert Calls
Prof. Victor Lyonnet 1 , Prof. Amin Shams2 , Prof. Shaojun Zhang2
1 University of Michigan, United States of America; 2 Ohio State University, United States of America
We analyze how early-stage investors evaluate potential investments by using
ChatGPT to analyze 5,143 expert consultation calls. Companies discussed in these
calls are 15 percentage points more likely to receive financing in the following quarter.
Positive signals about technology integration and customer acquisition increase deal
likelihood by 14% and 10.5%, respectively, with their predictive power declining by
over 75% for mature companies. Market analysis and business strategy discussions –
comprising over 40% of call content—show minimal predictive power for investment
outcomes. Our findings document both how investors overcome information asymmetries
in early-stage investing and a misalignment between the information they seek and
the information that predicts investment outcomes. Methodologically, we demonstrate
the potential of LLMs to extract nuanced insights from complex qualitative data.
