8,942 research outputs found

    Entrepreneurial Exits and Innovation

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    We examine how initial public offerings (IPOs) and acquisitions affect entrepreneurial innovation as measured by patent counts and forward patent citations. We construct a firm-year panel data set of all venture capital-backed biotechnology firms founded between 1980 and 2000, tracked yearly through 2006. We address the possibility of unobserved self-selection into exit mode by using coarsened exact matching, and in two additional ways: (1) comparing firms that filed for an IPO (or announced a merger) with those not completing the transaction for reasons unrelated to innovation, and (2) using an instrumental variables approach. We find that innovation quality is highest under private ownership and lowest under public ownership, with acquisition intermediate between the two. Together with a set of within-exit mode analyses, these results are consistent with the proposition that information confidentiality mechanisms shape innovation outcomes. The results are not explained by inventor-level turnover following exit events or by firms\u27 preexit window dressing behavior

    Innovation and venture capital exit performance

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    Venture capital is a potent source of R&D financing which contributes significantly to technological innovation output in the form of patented inventions. Scholars have argued that tighter protection of intellectual property rights reduces expropriation risks and encourages venture capitalists to invest in technology firms. Prior studies have showed that early stage technology investors give much weight to investment selection criteria related to innovation e.g. protection of intellectual property, platform and uniqueness. However, VC investors generally receive little on their investments until a liquidation event occurs – IPO and M&A (trade sale) exits define venture capital performance. A review of the literature indicates that few empirical studies have examined the influence of patented innovation on the exit performance of VC-backed technology firms. This paper seeks to address this specific knowledge gap in venture capital research and practice. It builds on resource-based view (RBV) theory which argues that technological innovation is an important strategic resource of the entrepreneurial firm that can attract VC investment, provide competitive advantage and produce superior performance. This study is based on matched data compiled from VentureXpertTM, DelphionTM and NBER/USPTO databases. The resulting unique and proprietary dataset consists of 1504 U.S. VC-backed exits across 7 technology sectors in the 20 years from 1980-2000, 961 IPOs and 543 M&As. The influence of technological innovation on the exit performance of VC-backed technology firms is examined. As predicted by RBV theory, technology firms engaged in patenting activity were found more likely to be associated with the more profitable IPO exit route, higher VC investment and exit value

    Entrepreneurial culture in Hungary - the hype of starts-ups

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    The main focus of this article is to discuss startups from an entrepreneurial perspective, emphasizing the context and external sources for managing startup enterprises. First, a number of definitions of “startup” businesses will be provided. Startup as an enterprise and startup as a culture will be differentiated. As entrepreneurial and macro perspectives are adopted, some economic criteria and statistics will be provided, with a special focus on comparing Hungary to other countries along innovation, entrepreneurship and financial capital. This will give a clearer picture of Hungary’s potential for startup-exits

    Entrepreneurial culture in Hungary - the hype of starts-ups

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    The main focus of this article is to discuss startups from an entrepreneurial perspective, emphasizing the context and external sources for managing startup enterprises. First, a number of definitions of “startup” businesses will be provided. Startup as an enterprise and startup as a culture will be differentiated. As entrepreneurial and macro perspectives are adopted, some economic criteria and statistics will be provided, with a special focus on comparing Hungary to other countries along innovation, entrepreneurship and financial capital. This will give a clearer picture of Hungary’s potential for startup-exits

    Death is not a success: reflections on business exit

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    This article is a critical evaluation of claims that business exits should not be seen as failures, on the grounds that may constitute voluntary liquidation, or because they are learning opportunities. This can be seen as further evidence of bias affecting entrepreneurship research, where failures are repackaged as successes. This article reiterates that the majority of business exits are unsuccessful. Drawing on ideas from the organisational life course, it is suggested that business ‘death’ is a suitable term for describing business closure. Even cases of voluntary ‘harvest liquidation’ such as retirement can be meaningfully described as business deaths

    Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands; Business transfer

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    This report is the eighth edition of the series 'Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands'. As demonstrated by the name of the series, the reports focus on entrepreneurship but each year a different aspect of entrepreneurship is studied. This eight report deals with business transfer. In the coming years many entrepreneurs in the Netherlands as well as in Europe will retire and cease trading. This will create a large number of enterprises that will be for sale. However at this stage the market for buying and selling such businesses, at least in the Netherlands, is not very well developed and there is a risk that successful enterprises will be closed unnecessarily. In the framework of their entrepreneurship policy, governments as well as the European Commission have developed actions to stimulate a smooth acquisition of these enterprises. In this report, the business transfer case in the Netherlands and the policy developed by the Dutch Government are described.

    Entrepreneurship, structural change, and economic growth

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    The ability to adjust to structural change is vital to economic development, and entries can be active participants in this process. While the importance of factor reallocations for growth is widely accepted, the role of entrepreneurs in managing these reallocations is rarely, if ever, mentioned in the empirical growth literature. This paper analyzes the role of entrepreneurial activity for adjustments of the sectoral structure and its relevance for regional economic development. The historical framework is the accelerated economic transformation that occurred in industrialized countries during the mid 1970s, resulting in an increasing need to adjust. Based on German data from 1975 to 2002, evidence is presented that sectoral reallocations are an important means for transforming entrepreneurial activity into growth.Entrepreneurship, new business formation, regional development, structural change

    Private equity returns and disclosure around the world

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    We study the returns the venture capital and private equity investment from 221 venture capital and private equity funds that are part of 72 venture capital and private equity firms, 5040 entrepreneurial firms (3826 venture capital and 1214 private equity), and spanning 32 years (1971 - 2003) and 39 countries from North and South America, Europe and Asia. We make use of four main categories of variables to proxy for value-added activities and risks that explain venture capital and private equity returns: market and legal environment, VC characteristics, entrepreneurial firm characteristics, and the characteristics and structure of the investment. We show Heckman sample selection issues in regards to both unrealized and partially realized investments are important to consider for analysing the determinants of realized returns. We further compare the actual unrealized returns, as reported to investment managers, to the predicted unrealized returns based on the estimates of realized returns from the sample selection models. We show there exists significant systematic biases in the reporting of unrealized investments to institutional investors depending on the level of the earnings aggressiveness and disclosure indices in a country, as well as proxies for the degree of information asymmetry between investment managers and venture capital and private equity fund managers. Klassifikation: G24, G28, G31, G32, G3

    The role of the exit in the initial screening of investment opportunities: The case of business angel syndicate gatekeepers

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    The exit process has been largely ignored in business angel research.. The practitioner community identifies the difficulty in achieving exits as the most pressing problem for investors. This has been attributed to the failure of investors to adopt an exit-centric approach to investing. The validity of this claim is examined via a study of the investment approach of 21 ‘gatekeepers’ (managers) of angel groups in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Most gatekeepers say that they do consider the exit when they invest. However, this is contradicted by a verbal protocol analysis which indicates that the exit is not a significant consideration in their initial screening process. The small number of exits achieved by the groups is consistent with the general lack of an exit-centric approach to investing. Only three groups exhibit evidence of a strong exit-centric approach to investing. The lack of exits may have a negative impact on the level of future angel investment activity

    Has Europe been catching up? : An industry level analysis of venture capital success over 1985 – 2009 : [Version November 2012]

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    After nearly two decades of US leadership during the 1980s and 1990s, are Europe’s venture capital (VC) markets in the 2000s finally catching up regarding the provision of financing and successful exits, or is the performance gap as wide as ever? Are we amid an overall VC performance slump with no encouraging news? We attempt to answer these questions by tracking over 40,000 VC-backed firms stemming from six industries in 13 European countries and the US between 1985 and 2009; determining the type of exit – if any – each particular firm’s investors choose for the venture
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