Finance and Economics Discussion Series (FEDS)
September 2015
Venture Capital and the Performance of Incumbents
Abstract:
I study the effect of investment in young, private firms by venture capitalists (VC) on public firms in the same industry. I construct an instrument for VC investment that relies on individual VC's investment histories, holdings of equity stakes in IPO firms, and aggregate market returns immediately following those IPOs. I find that increased VC investment has a large effect on incumbent profitability. The effect arises due to higher costs and not depressed sales. The effect is short lived as firms respond by reallocating resources away from treated markets and by reducing their use of labor.
Keywords: Corporate finance, Financial markets, Venture Capital
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2015.080
PDF: Full Paper