Economic freedom and cross-border venture capital performance

We investigate the determinants of cross-border venture capital (VC) performance using a large sample of 10,205 cross-border VC investments by 1906 foreign VC firms (VCs) in 6535 domestic portfolio companies. We focus on the impact of a domestic country's economic freedom on the performance of both VC investments and portfolio companies using a probit model and the Cox hazard model. After controlling for other related factors of domestic countries, portfolio companies, VCs and the global VC market, as well as year and industry fixed effects, we find that a domestic country's economic freedom is crucial to cross-border VC performance. In particular, in a more economically free country, as measured by the raw values of, quartiles of or the ranking in the index of economic freedom (IEF), a foreign VC-backed portfolio company is more likely to pull off a successful exit through an IPO (initial public offering) or an M&A (merger and acquisition), and a foreign VC firm is likely to spend a shorter investment duration in the portfolio company. We also identify interesting evidence on the impact of many other level factors of domestic countries, portfolio companies, VCs and the global VC market on cross-border VC performance.     

Cross-border venture capital performance: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the determinants of cross-border venture capital (VC) performance in the Chinese VC market. We focus on the impact of foreign VC firms' (VCs') human capital and domestic entrepreneurs' experience on the performance of both VC investments and portfolio companies using logit and Cox hazard models. After controlling for portfolio company quality, domestic VC industry development, domestic exit conditions and a number of other factors, little correlation was evident between VC performance and foreign VCs' human capital, such as experience, networks and reputation. In contrast, the domestic entrepreneurs' experience is crucial to VC performance. In particular, if an entrepreneur has more general experience in terms of the number of companies previously worked for or more special experience in terms of the number of companies previously served as a CEO or top manager, a portfolio company is more likely to pull off a successful exit through IPO or M&A, and the VCs are also likely to shorten their investment duration in the portfolio company.     

创业板公司IPO前后业绩变化及风险投资的影响

本文以创业板市场为样本,通过实证分析发现:风险投资在控制盈余管理方面有积极正面的影响;在上市时机选择方面,由于我国上市仍采用审批制,有风险投资和无风险投资在这一点上没有明显差异;同等资本下有风险投资持股的企业募集资金的金额少于无风险投资持股的企业,同时普通VC引入资金少于国有VC引入资金;有VC持股的企业发行后经营业绩的情况好于无VC持股的企业,风险投资的介入对于企业经营业绩有明显的正向作用。此外研究发现由于多数项目集中于政府手中,很多优质资源民间资本投资渠道不畅通,在这一点上具有国资背景的风险投资具备明显优势,容易以较低的风险进入。     

Coaches or Speculators? The Role and Impact of Venture Capital on Executive Compensation in Chinese Listed Companies

In this paper, we utilize a panel dataset that covers 1245 listed companies which accomplished their IPO during 2006 to 2014 in China to investigate the impact of venture capital (VC) firms on executive compensation, equity incentive and pay-performance-sensitivity. We make several key findings: First, we find the presence of VCs can significantly raise the executive compensation. Second, high reputation VCs and private VCs increases the likelihood of granting executive equity incentives, whereas foreign VCs are significantly negatively related with executive equity incentive. Third, the pay-performance sensitivity of government VCs and foreign VCs is significant on stock return (RET) whereas insignificant on accounting performance (ROA). Moreover, the increasing VCs share in portfolio companies enhance the pay performance sensitivity on RET. Our results show that before VCs final exiting their post-IPO portfolio companies in China, VCs’ impact on executive compensation are more consistent with grandstanding theories and intending to provide higher cash compensation to encourage executives to raise the companies’ stock price, which is indicating VCs’ changing role from a coach into a speculator after the portfolio companies’ IPO.     

Venture capital reputation and investment performance

I propose a new measure of venture capital (VC) firm reputation and analyze its performance implications on private companies. Controlling for portfolio company quality and other VC-specific factors including experience, connectedness, syndication, industry competition, exit conditions, and investment environment, I find companies backed by more reputable VCs by initial public offering (IPO) capitalization share (based on cumulative market capitalization of IPOs backed by the VC), are more likely to exit successfully, access public markets faster, and have higher asset productivity at IPOs. Further tests suggest VCs’ IPO Capitalization share effectively captures both VC screening and monitoring expertise. My findings have financial implications for limited partners and entrepreneurs regarding their VC-sorting activities.     

What Matters in Venture Capital? Evidence from Entrepreneurs’ Stated Preferences

We study how entrepreneurs evaluate the ability of different US venture capitalists (VCs) to add value to start-up companies. Analyzing a large data set of entrepreneurs’ stated preferences regarding VCs, we demonstrate that entrepreneurs view independent partnership VCs more favorably than other VC types (e.g., corporate, financial, and government sponsored VCs). Although entrepreneurs are able to correctly identify VCs with better track records, they do not believe them to be more desirable investors. We also find that an entrepreneur's rankings are affected by their overall exposure to VCs, emphasizing the role of experiential learning in the venture capital market.     

Advice and monitoring in venture finance

This paper provides empirical insight into the role of contracts and legal systems for managing investor–investee relationships along two dimensions: providing advice and addressing conflict. We examine a new detailed dataset from European venture capital (VC) funds. We match very specific contractual terms in VC contracts with the effort (total time spent) and advice that VCs provide to their entrepreneurial investee firms. We also analyze VC–entrepreneur conflicts. We compare the importance of contractual versus non-contractual governance mechanisms, as well as the role of legal systems in different countries for facilitating VC–entrepreneur relationships. The data indicate VC cash-flow and control rights significantly facilitating effort and advice that VCs provide to entrepreneurs. VC–entrepreneur conflicts are closely tied to the quality of laws in which the entrepreneur resides: higher quality legal systems mitigate VC–entrepreneur conflicts. The data further indicate that non-contractual governance mechanisms significantly facilitate VC advice and mitigate VC–entrepreneur conflicts. The results provide a unique unifying look into the role of actual VC contracts and legal settings versus non-contractual governance mechanisms, risk, and success potential on VC–entrepreneur relationships in an international context.      

Venturing beyond the IPO: Financing of Newly Public Firms by Venture Capitalists

Contrary to conventional wisdom, we document that approximately 15% of venture capitalist (VC)-backed firms raise additional capital from VCs in the five years after going public. We propose two explanations for why firms revert to VC financing post-IPO (initial public offering). First, we hypothesize that VC participation in post-IPO financing represents an efficient solution to informational problems that would otherwise constrain firms’ abilities to exploit value-increasing investments. Analyses of firm and VC characteristics, together with the finding that these investments are value-increasing for both VCs and the underlying companies, support this hypothesis. We find no support for the alternative that agency conflicts motivate these investments.     

Investor abilities and financial contracting: Evidence from venture capital

Using a large, new database of contractual provisions governing the allocation of cash flow rights in venture capital (VC) financings, we investigate how contract design is related to VC abilities to monitor and provide value-added services to the entrepreneur. We find that more experienced VCs, who have superior abilities and more frequently join the boards of their portfolio companies, obtain weaker downside-protecting contractual cash flow rights than less experienced VCs. Several pieces of evidence suggest that this relation is unlikely to be driven by selection effects. The results suggest that VCs with better governance abilities focus less on obtaining downside protections, which entail risk-sharing costs, and more on other aspects of the contract (such as obtaining board representation) during negotiations with entrepreneurs. The results also imply that previous estimates of the amount entrepreneurs pay for affiliation with high-quality VCs are overstated.     

CARE Conference Hong Kong Polytechnic University,June 9, 2014: Equity Financing for Early‐Stage Companies in China

Many of the smaller private‐sector Chinese companies in their entrepreneurial growth stage are now being funded by Chinese venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms. In contrast to western VC markets, where institutional investors such as pension funds and endowments have been the main providers of capital, in China most capital for domestic funds has come from private business owners and high net worth individuals. As relatively new players in the market who are less accustomed to entrusting their capital to fund managers for a lengthy period of time, Chinese VCs and their investors have shown a shorter investment horizon and demanded a faster return of capital and profits. In an attempt to explain this behavior, Paul Gompers and Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School have offered a “grandstanding hypothesis” that focuses on the incentives of younger, less established VCs to push their portfolio companies out into the IPO market as early as they can—and thus possibly prematurely—to establish a track record and facilitate future fundraising. This explanation is supported by the under‐performance of Chinese VC‐backed IPOs that has been documented by the author's recent research. Although they continue to offer significant opportunities for global investors, China's VC and PE markets still face many challenges. The supervisory system and legal environment need further improvement, and Chinese funds need to find a way to attract more institutional investors—a goal that can and likely will be promoted through government inducements.     

An Entrepreneur's Guide to Understanding the Cost of Venture Capital

Entrepreneurs who deal with a venture capital firm (VC) for the first time often find themselves unprepared for the experience. The deal structure language used to describe financing terms, and the methods used to value the investment, are unique to the VC world. The authors have two objectives in preparing this entrepreneur's guide to venture capital finance: First, they explain why VCs require rates of return that are considerably higher—even after adjusting for difference in risk—than the returns required by the shareholders of established companies. Their explanation focuses on differences of opinion between overly optimistic entrepreneurs and less sanguine VCs. Second, the authors discuss the difficulty faced by entrepreneurs when trying to understand the actual cost of VC financing (including the dilution of value that occurs when entrepreneurs fail to meet targets or milestones). The problem can be traced to deal structure terms that typically call for the VC to receive preferential treatment in the event the entrepreneur's scenario does not turn out to be accurate. More specifically, entrepreneurs often grant VCs control rights as well as liquidation rights that, when things go wrong, dramatically increase the effective cost to entrepreneurs of venture financing.     

Performance of Private to Public MBOs: The Role of Venture Capital

Abstract:   Using a unique dataset, we examine financial performance, and venture capital involvement in 167 MBOs exiting through IPOs (MBO‐IPOs) on the London Stock Exchange, during the period 1964 –1997. VC backed MBOs seem to be more underpriced than MBOs without venture capital backing, based on average value‐weighted returns. MBOs backed by highly reputable VCs tend to be older companies, and exit earlier than MBOs backed by less reputable VCs. The results contradict 'certification' and 'grandstanding' hypotheses supported by US data ( Megginson and Weiss, 1991 ; and Gompers, 1996 , respectively). We found no evidence of either significant underperformance, or that VC backed MBOs perform better than their non‐VC backed counterparts in the long run. However, MBOs backed by highly reputable venture capital firms seem to be better long‐term investments as compared to those backed by less prestigious venture capitalist firms. The results remain robust after using different methods to measure performance, and after controlling for sample selectivity bias.     

The monitoring role of venture capital on controllers' tunneling: Evidence from China

This paper provides evidence supporting the monitoring role of venture capital (VC) in mitigating controlling shareholders' tunneling behavior. We use the staggered introduction of bullet trains in China as shocks to travel time between VCs and portfolio companies, which increases VCs' involvement in portfolio companies' governance. Using a generalized difference-in-difference design, we find that the increased VC involvement induced by the opening of a bullet train route in a city decreases affected portfolio companies' inter-corporate loans by 0.4 percentage points (pp) and the probability of a company violating capital occupation by 6.2 pp. The effect of bullet train connectivity on VC monitoring is more pronounced for companies that are located in cities where are subjected to a larger extent of bullet train connectivity, companies that experience more problematic tunneling, and companies that have looser alternative governance mechanisms. Furthermore, we provide direct evidence supporting the effect of bullet train connectivity on VC involvement by showing that VC directors participate more in the committees and board meetings. Our paper contributes to the literature by providing a plausibly causal effect of VC monitoring on the conflict between the controlling and minority shareholders.     

Investment risk allocation and the venture capital exit market: Evidence from early stage investing

This study provides evidence on how venture capitalists’ (VCs’) allocations of capital to riskier investments, as measured by the proportion of early versus late-stage investment in an industry, are linked to exit market conditions. Prior research has primarily focused on how VCs adjust aggregate investment to public equity market conditions. We develop a more inclusive measure of exit market conditions that accounts for recent secular changes that have affected the industry return structure, specifically, the sharp rise in the number of failures and M&A relative to IPO exits. We show that the dollars gained relative to dollars lost in recent exits and failures are significantly positively related to VCs’ allocations to early-stage companies over the period 1990–2008. The changes in allocations are large enough to have an effect on the availability of funding for early stage companies. In sum, our evidence shows that exit market conditions have a significant and economically meaningful influence on VCs’ allocations to riskier investments.     

Venture capitalists and portfolio companies’ real activities manipulation

I study the relation between venture capitalists’ (VCs) presence and real activities manipulation (RM). I find that compared to non-venture-backed companies, venture-backed companies show significantly less RM in the first post-IPO fiscal year. The results are robust after controlling for the VC selection endogeneity. This is consistent with the argument that VCs do not inflate earnings when they exit the IPO firm but instead exercise a monitoring role to reduce the RM by other insiders. By the end of the second post-IPO fiscal year when VCs exit the portfolio companies, their impact on portfolio companies’ RM decreases dramatically. This suggests that the impact of VCs on portfolio companies is mainly through direct monitoring rather than through the establishment of a governance structure. A partitioned sample analysis indicates that VCs lapse their control and do not restrain RM during the Internet Bubble. VCs also tighten their control and reduce significantly RM in technology companies where managers engage in more aggressive RM, but they have no influence on RM in non-tech companies. Furthermore, using alternative VCs’ reputation proxies, I find that portfolio companies’ RM is negatively associated with VCs’ reputation.     

VC investments and global exits

This paper examines exits of UK venture capital backers (VCs) from portfolio companies around the world. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are the most frequently used exit route for all investments, both in the UK and abroad. Exit through M&A is particularly common for investments in the UK while the probability of an exit through an initial public offering (IPO) is substantially lower for investments made in the UK than abroad. We are able to explain these country differences in terms of variations in the characteristics of VCs, portfolio companies, legal systems and market conditions. Portfolio companies backed by experienced VCs have high probabilities of exits through M&A or IPO. A successful exit is more likely when a VC syndicate includes an experienced member. The likelihood of a successful exit through M&A, IPO or management buyouts is high in countries with, and at times of, high stock market liquidity. Legal systems that provide more investor protection facilitate exits through IPO or M&A.     

Venture Capital Networks in Southeast Asia: Network characteristics and cohesive subgroups

Venture capital firms (VC) have encountered with uncertainty and risk of asymmetric information due to an investment in early-to-growth stage start-ups with technological base and high growth potential. Venture capital syndication network helps reduce a broad gap of information asymmetry in a venture capital investment. Moreover, network connections are found to be the success factor for venture capitalists under a lack of fully developed institutional environment in emerging market. Venture capital industry in Southeast Asia is nascent yet in demanding and fast growing. Despite a decline in the number of venture deals in the US, the deals keep surging in Southeast Asia (SEA), one of the most significant and dynamic propellers of the world economy. To develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in SEA, it is interesting to examine how VC firms are connected to one another. Even though several literatures found some distinctive network characteristics amidst the US, European and Chinese venture capital market, the Southeast Asian has left unattended. In this paper, we initiate the network of venture capital firms among Southeast Asian nations and explore their relationships through social network analysis. The purposes of this study are to investigate the topological and statistical properties of VC network consisting of small-world behavior, power law distribution, and centrality measure such as degree, closeness, and betweenness. In addition, we classify various levels of connections into subnetworks and examine influential groups of VCs in Southeast Asia.We initiate an empirical study on the characteristics of VC network across different countries in Southeast Asia by using a unique hand-collected dataset of syndicated deals. Social network analysis has initially and preliminarily been applied to the VC network in this region. This paper contributes to VC network literature in providing a unique network structure and network metrics of venture capital in SEA. In managerial contribution, this study provides more structural VC cooperation towards VC syndication networks. This benefits to venture capital firms who are looking for potential partners in Southeast Asian region and start-up companies who are looking for funding with high-networked or influencial VCs. The results also confirm previous evidence of significance on VC networks in emerging market, even if the institution and regulation are claimed to fall behind that in the developed market. This research introduces the fact that the venture capital network in Southeast Asia has small-world pattern and Singapore acts as a hub of venture capital market in the region. Top-ranking VC firms have been listed by network centrality across nations, while multi-company syndications are prevailing in Southeast Asia.     

Technology timing of IPOs and venture capital incubation

This paper investigates whether industry technological changes affect the timing of venture capital-backed IPOs. Venture capitalists (VCs) shorten incubation periods and take portfolio companies public when the industry exhibits high levels of technological change. This technology timing of IPOs reflects the VCs' efforts to raise future capital. In particular, during periods of greater technological change, VCs that conduct IPOs after shorter incubation periods obtain more subsequent funding. However, portfolio companies with shorter incubation periods earn fewer patents, are less likely to survive, and experience worse stock returns after their IPOs. These findings provide new insights into VCs' strategic exit decisions due to changes in the technological environment, as well as how their decisions affect the post-exit performance of their portfolio companies.     

University of Texas Roundtable on Recent Trends in U.S. Venture Capital

At a recent private equity conference hosted by the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas in Austin, four venture capitalists representing the East and West Coasts provided testimony to the spread of the VC industry far beyond Silicon Valley to places like New York, London, and Berlin—as well as Austin itself. The result, in the words of one panelist, has been “a shift from Silicon Valley as the epicenter of so much innovation and growth to something more like a globally distributed network of capital, talent, and opportunity.” Along with this geographic expansion of the industry, perhaps the most notable change is the tendency of today's VCs to delay the IPOs of their portfolio companies and, by keeping them private longer, capture more of their growth in value. Whereas 20 years ago 90% or more of the value appreciation came after the IPO of a highly successful company (think about Micro‐Soft or Amazon.com ), a much larger share of the overall value creation now appears to be taking place before the IPO, thanks to the growing use of a funding vehicle known as private initial public offerings, or PIPOs. The use of PIPOs has enabled VC‐backed companies to attract large amounts of capital from large institutional investors like Fidelity—which in the past would not have invested in the company until the IPO—while retaining what the panelists view as significant advantages of private ownership and governance.     

Politician as venture capitalist: Politically-connected VCs and IPO activity in China

This study examines the impact of venture capitalists' (VC) political connections on their portfolio companies. Specifically, we use a manually-collected dataset of VCs' political connection to investigate the potential benefits and costs that politically-connected VCs bring to their portfolio companies. On the benefit side, we find that companies backed by politically-connected VCs are more likely to obtain IPO approval from the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC, China's counterpart to the SEC in the US). On the other hand, these VCs are more likely to acquire equity in the company at a significant discount and to invest shortly before the IPO application. In addition, we find that politically-connected VC-backed companies do not experience greater improvements in financial performance, corporate governance, or innovation output subsequent to receiving venture financing. Our results further show that companies backed by VCs with political connections are less mature and experience more underpricing at their IPO than non-politically-connected VC-backed companies. Finally, we find that, compared to non-politically-connected VCs, politically-connected VCs exit earlier after a company's IPO and that their portfolio companies experience greater post-IPO underperformance and performance volatility.