Failure to attract external financing is a common puzzle for start-up firms and often leads to the use of entrepreneurs' personal funding, typically with the help of their family. With little entrepreneurial experience, nascent entrepreneurs will have no factual signals to show external investors, except their characteristics or those of their family. The literature mainly focuses on the net effects of entrepreneurs' personal capital endowments in isolation on start-up capital structure despite emerging appreciation of the importance of family-related factors. However, little is known about which combinations of capital endowments across capital dimensions (i.e., human, social, and financial capital) or generations (i.e., parent and child) will likely affect the level of external funding. Drawing on signaling theory, we adopt a configurational approach to examine the compositions of intergenerational capital endowments that are sufficient to shape external funding. Conducting a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of Chinese privately owned enterprises of nascent entrepreneurs, we identify four typical family prototypes that feature intergenerational capital endowments for low external funding. Findings highlight the significance of family dynamics in China and their role in shaping new venture financing by displaying intergenerational signals.

无法吸引外部投资是初创企业面临的一个常见难题，这通常会导致企业家使用个人资本或者家庭资本。由于缺乏创业经验，新生创业者除了自己或家族的特征外，无法向外部投资者发出任何事实性信号。尽管创业领域的学者们逐渐认识到家庭相关因素的重要性，但文献中主要关注了企业家个人资本禀赋对初创资本结构的影响。然而，现有研究对于跨资本维度（即人力、社会和金融资本）或跨代际（即父辈和子辈）的资本禀赋组合如何影响新创企业外部融资水平却知之甚少。借鉴信号理论，本研究采用组态视角来研究足以影响外部融资的代际资本禀赋构型。通过对来自中国私营企业的新生创业者的数据进行模糊定性比较分析，我们确定了四种典型的家庭原型，这些原型展示了低外部融资时的创业者的家庭代际资本结构。研究结果强调了家庭动态在中国的重要性及其通过发出代际信号在影响新创企业融资中的作用。