While there is growing scholarly interest in multi-party collaborations that involve three or more firms, most of this literature has focused on the governance, performance, and dissolution of multi-party collaborations. Accordingly, less has been known about which multi-party collaborations are likely to form or the extent to which the formation of multi-party collaborations may differ from the formation of dyadic collaborations. We address these gaps by exploring the formation of multi-party VC syndicates - a context that exhibits substantial multi-party collaboration but that has been less examined through the multi-party lens. We argue and show that multi-party syndication is influenced by a number of group-level constructs. We highlight how group-level VC syndicate formation is not a simple deductive elaboration of dyadic VC syndication, instead involving different constructs and logics. We also offer insight into how status dynamics may differ between dyads and groups.