Abstract: As the designer and the executor of strategies, the characteristics of top management team (TMT) will certainly have great influence on firm’s decision on introducing venture capital. This article takes firms with venture capital involvement and listed on the SME Board as samples to develop an empirical study. We find that, the higher the average education of TMT, the more likely they will cooperate with venture capitals at an earlier stage and prefer venture capitals with mix background; the higher the average age of TMT, the more likely they will reject round financing; firms with a higher percentage of government background top managers in TMT, will more likely to cooperate with venture capitals with government background, and prefer to employ round financing; the higher the shares hold by TMT, the less the firm cooperates with venture capitals at an earlier stage and the less the firm employs round financing. This paper has great contribution to studies on TMT and venture capital.

Key words: top management team, human capital characteristics, political background, venture capital