This paper examines how organizational structure affects behavior and outcomes, studying the performance of different types of venture capital organizations. We find a strong positive relationship between the degree of specialization by individual venture capitalists at a firm and its success. When the individual investment professionals are highly specialized themselves, the marginal effect of...

The Bitcoin ecosystem has grown tremendously in recent years. While the main sectors of growth and venture capital funding have been infrastructure for the Bitcoin ecosystem itself as well as financial services, there is also a more recent evolution in sectors beyond financial services. We classify the venture-capital backed start up ecosystem accordingly and present its evolution over time. Th...

Article history: Received 21 November 2008 Received in revised form 21 July 2009 Accepted 8 August 2009 Available online 23 June 2010 This paper examines how public market information relates to the initiation of venture capital projects. Analysis of venture capital investments in the U.S. between 1980 and 2007 indicates that venture capitalists tend to defer new investment projects in target i...

Using an agency framework, this paper examines advantages of offering venture capitalists a choice between public equity and loan schemes. Both schemes can be used to promote venture capital investments in hightechnology enterprises since they encourage inexperienced venture capitalists to accumulate experience. However, under both schemes, experienced venture capitalists save on management sup...

This paper develops a theory of how angel and venture capital markets interact. Entrepreneurs first receive angel then venture capital funding. The two investor types are ‘friends’ in that they rely upon each other's investments. However, they are also ‘foes,’ because at the later stage the venture capitalists no longer need the angels. Using a costly search model we derive the equilibrium deal...

Professions develop isomorphic, or similar, characteristics not only within countries but also around the world. This research examines venture capital professionals in three distinct regions of the world and finds that their values are shaped by normative institutional processes. The strength of these normative processes leads to stable views on what venture capitalists believe their roles are...

This paper focuses on the development of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) after a management buy-out (MBO) and on the role played by venture capital firms in enhancing EO. It presents results of two exploratory case studies of divisional buy-outs with regard to their EO and the areas where the venture capital firm (VC) has been of greatest help. We discuss their contribution to elements of the ...

Improving venture capitalists’ decision processes is key to reducing failure rates for venture capital backed companies and to improving portfolio returns. In this paper we describe the use of a novel technique—Bayesian causal maps—to support and improve venture capital decision making. We combine causal mapping and Bayesian network techniques to construct a Bayesian causal map. The resulting p...

This article reviews the literature on venture capital in China and examines where China’s venture capital industry has been and where it is likely to go in the future. Since the 1980s, venture capital in China has grown steadily alongside the robust national economy. The future is likely to offer even greater opportunities, as entrepreneurs are encouraged and property rights improve. However, ...