[anigbrowl]

What's lost in absolute $ terms is (IMHO) more than made up for by being known as the early bird, which status will yield other opportunities. In game theory terms being early is not optimal in a single round but close to optimal in the iterated competition that more often prevails.

[harryh]

But it's very rarely known who is the early bird in investment rounds.

[ganeumann]

It is by the other investors. And the best investment opportunities come when other investors ask you to be in a syndicate for a deal they're leading. They may do this because they hope that next time you're the early-bird investor, you will remember them when you are helping form the syndicate.