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2024ECO005
Doctoral thesis

Essays in entrepreneurial finance

  • 2024

PhD: Università della Svizzera italiana

Venture capital
Startups
Investments
Entrepreneurial finance
English This dissertation explores the financing of high-growth startups and the frictions these firms encounter in securing funding from Venture Capital (VC) investors. The first essay investigates the VCs’ choice to specialize in specific sectors, and the impact of such choices on the entrepreneurial landscape. I find that specialization has increased by 30% since 2006, mainly driven by new funds concentrating on software startups following the introduction of Amazon Web Services, which lowered entry costs. This increased specialization suggests one potential mechanism for the documented decline in non-software investments in recent years. Chapter 2 analyzes the rise toward remote VC investments post-Covid, showing a 35% increase in VC-startup geographical distance. VCs offset the lack of in-person interactions by investing more in sectors they know well and relying more on their existing networks, suggesting that online communication only partially replaces traditional face-to-face interactions. The final chapter examines the role of VC financing of climate change-related technologies. It finds that while VC-backed firms produce highly influential patents, the overall VC contribution to deep tech remains limited, posing challenges for the transition to Net Zero.
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Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
License
License undefined
Open access status
green
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https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1329756
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