Venture capital firms’ lead orientation, network position, and selection of familiar syndicate partners

•A VC firm’s lead orientation reflects its propensity to act as a lead investor rather than a follow investor in past syndication investments.•A VC firm’s lead orientation is related to its risk preference, self-confidence, knowledge search and opportunity recognition.•A VC firm’s lead orientation has an inverted U-shaped relationship with its propensity to select familiar syndicate partners.•A VC firm’s network centrality weakens the inverted U-shaped relationship.•A VC firm’s constraint imposed by the VC network (i.e. network constraint) weakens the inverted U-shaped relationship.