The power of syndicates

: evidence from Venture Capital Investments in the United States

Abstract

The way that Venture Capital is able to optimize its contribution towards the benefit of the venture has been debated for numerous years. Some authors show the competitive edge of the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) with complementary assets while others suggest that Independent Venture Capital (IVC) offers other decisive attributes like strategy formulationand networking. Additionally, current literature also discusses the impact of creating a syndicate and of being within the same industry and location. Therefore, this dissertation studies the optimal setting a venture should have in regard to their investor in order to maximize its innovation output. Understanding what type of investor to have (CVC vs IVC) and the proximity to it in terms of industry and location, could play a paramount role. Based on the main sample of 1022 ventures between 1990 and 2019, there is strong evidence of an existingsuperiority of CVC compared to IVC. The syndicate can further boost the innovation output contribution when it is composed by more than twelve members. The regressions also show that having industry and geographical proximity augments the innovation output of the venture.To give additional support to the current findings, the sample was transformed into a Pre- andPost-IPO period. The results were similar to the ones before, except the geographic locationthat only is significant in a Post-IPO period. To solidify the conclusions, various regressions were done with different timeframes and different SIC restrictions. The findings were consistent with the original regressions.

Date of Award	27 Jan 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Fátima Shuwaikh (Supervisor)