One of the most important events in a new venture’s lifecycle is the entry of a new owner. The entry of new owners often comes with structural changes affecting the position of founders within their firm. In this study, we investigate how shifts in founders’ ownership – such as whose position is strengthened, weakened, or who exits the firm – are relate to their firm-specific knowledge and the type of new owner. Analyzing 2,483 founders from 973 new ventures, our findings suggest that both founders with firm-specific inventive and firm-specific managerial knowledge are less likely to leave the firm or be weakened in their ownership position. Our results further reveal that this pattern is contingent on the type of new owner—specifically, whether the new entrant is a new owner-manager or an investor, and the type of investor involved. Interestingly, new owners rarely alter the relative ownership distribution among the remaining founders, suggesting that founders either exit entirely or retain their existing ownership proportions relative to the other founders. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how changes in firm-level ownership dynamics are linked to a realignment of individual founders’ ownership and their individual positions.
