Venture Capital Investments in Europe and Portfolio Firms' Economic Performance: Independent Versus Corporate Investors

Using a new European Commission‐sponsored longitudinal dataset—the VICO dataset—we assess the impact of independent (IVC) and corporate venture capital (CVC) investments on the economic performance of European high‐tech entrepreneurial firms during the period 1992–2010. After controlling for potential sources of endogeneity and selection bias, our results indicate that both IVC and CVC investments boost portfolio firms' economic performance. These effects are mostly due to an increase in real sales value. Moreover, the dynamics of the impact of VC investments on firms’ overall economic performance and its components—real sales value, real fixed assets, and real labor costs—differs depending on the type of investor. Finally, we do not detect any impact related to the syndication of investments by both IVC and CVC investors.     

R&D subsidies and the performance of high-tech start-ups

This paper addresses the question of the efficacy of R&D policy measures in support of high-tech start-ups. We show that subsidies awarded on a competitive basis lead to a positive effect, while those assigned through an automatic procedure do not.     

The impact of venture capital on the productivity growth of European entrepreneurial firms: ‘Screening’ or ‘value added’ effect?

We aim to ascertain to what extent the better performance of European venture capital (VC)‐backed firms in high-tech industries is due to either ‘screening’ or ‘value added’ provided by VC investors. We compare portfolio firms' productivity growth before and after the first VC round, using a matched control group as benchmark. We show that productivity growth is not significantly different between VC and non-VC-backed firms before the first round of VC financing, whereas significant differences are found in the first years after the investment event. We also find that the value-adding services provided by VC investors ‘imprint’ the portfolio firm.     

Ownership structure,horizontal agency costs and the performance of high-tech entrepreneurial firms

We use the lens of the resource-based view and horizontal agency cost theory to analyse the effect of the presence of different types of individual owners, i.e., owner-managers and non-manager individual shareholders, on the performance of high-tech entrepreneurial firms. Ownership enlargement may contribute to fill the resource gap faced by entrepreneurial firms and improve firm performance. However, whereas owner-managers engender low horizontal agency costs, non-manager individual shareholders generate high horizontal agency problems because of their limited managerial involvement. Our results on a sample of Italian high-tech entrepreneurial firms show that the number of owner-managers has a positive effect on firm performance, whereas the effect of the number of non-manager individual shareholders is negligible. This latter effect becomes more positive, even though still not statistically significant, when firms are highly leveraged confirming the disciplining role of bank debt.     

Is green the new gold? Venture capital and green entrepreneurship

Small Business Economics - We test whether born-to-be-green represents a signal toward potential venture capital (VC) investors on a sample of Italian, independent, unlisted, high-tech...