Experience shows that 9 out of 10 start-ups and SMEs do not survive in the market and fail at an early stage. This study aims to fill a gap on how start-ups and SMEs are affected by venture capital fund investments, i.e., identifying the criteria for selecting a potentially best VCF, ensuring the success of the investment and reducing pos-sible bankruptcy risk. The object is VCFs in the United States. The data was used from a publicly available statistical database Crunchbase. Using the complex proportional assessment method CORPAS for evaluating and ranking VCF criteria and the cluster analysis – for identifying similarities between VCFs and dividing VCF into clusters, the inves-tigation determines the crucial criteria. The most important are: Years in business of VCF; The number of employees working for VCF; The fund’s marketing strategy. The study results can help further to develop an evaluation system of VCF eligibility criteria.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/bm.2022.778