New ventures often innovate by building on the technology of incumbent firms. The resulting technological links that form between new ventures and incumbents can open up valuable collaborative opportunities between them. Nonetheless, because these technological links also increase incumbents’ abilities to misappropriate the knowledge of new ventures, such collaboration can render new ventures particularly susceptible to the opportunistic whims of their incumbent partners. Whether technological links promote or impede corporate venture capital (CVC) deal formation may depend on incumbent firms’ propensities to behave opportunistically and how aware new ventures are of such propensities. We argue that when new ventures have social ties to incumbent firms that have opportunistic tendencies, technological links between them strongly impede CVC deal formation. In such cases, social ties substantiate new ventures’ fears of knowledge misappropriation that might occur. In contrast, when new ventures have social ties to incumbent firms that lack opportunistic tendencies, technological links between them strongly promote CVC deal formation as social ties validate the incumbent firm’s trustworthiness and the potential for productive collaboration as a result of technological links. Using a data set that integrates patent citations, hand-collected career histories, and infringement lawsuits, we tracked the investment pattern between 29 incumbents and 402 new ventures in the U.S. information technology industry and found support for our arguments.

在创新创业生态系统中，公司创业投资（CVC）是一种促进大企业开放式创新和创业企业快速成长的有效机制。CVC活动在我国的20多年实践证明：其促进了大企业与创业企业的共同发展，并使二者形成共生关系，通过共生介质和共生界面优化实现双方互利共生。在创新生态系统视阈下，大企业种群与创业企业种群可通过演化博弈形成稳定的共生关系，有利于提高双方的适应性并拓宽生态位，进而协同共生进行价值创造。因此，基于对公司创业投资（CVC）生态群落生态位的描述，引入Lotka-Volterra模型，利用算例仿真预测大企业和创业企业的创新生态位演化趋势，从共生、学习、创新、激励角度提出公司创业投资生态群落的共生培育机制，为我国公司创业投资生态群落中企业创新生态位的策略优化与选择提供理论支持。

In the entrepreneurial ecosystem, corporate venture capital (CVC) is an effective mechanism to promote the open innovation of large enterprises and the rapid growth of start-up enterprises. CVC practice activities have been carried out in China for 20 years, which has promoted the common development of large enterprises and start-up enterprises, and formed a symbiotic relationship between them through the optimization of symbiotic media and symbiotic interface, mutual benefit and symbiosis, can be realized. From the perspective of innovation ecosystem, the stable symbiotic relationship between large enterprise population and entrepreneurial enterprise population can be formed through evolutionary game, which is conducive to improving the adaptability of both sides and broadening the niche, and then co-exist to create value. The niche of CVC ecological community was described and the innovation of CVC ecological community was analyzed through the introduction of Lotka-Volterra model. This paper analysis the stability of evolution game through Replicator Dynamic Equation, and then discusses ten parameters of niche state. The evolution trend of innovation niche of large enterprises and start-up enterprises is obtained through simulation examples. Finally, the symbiosis cultivation mechanism of the ecological community of venture capital is proposed from the perspective of symbiosis, learning, innovation and incentive mechanism. It provides theoretical support for strategy optimization and selection of enterprise innovation niche in China's CVC ecological community. The cultivation and evolution of CVC ecological community is based on the formation of symbiotic relationship. The professional advantages and abilities of large enterprises and start-ups are the basis of their participation in symbiosis. The complementarity among multiple subjects makes them interdependent. Based on the common goal and mutual trust among subjects, they form a close relationship and gradually evolve into a stable symbiotic relationship. CVC ecological community's pursuit of symbiotic interests is its instinctive motivation. Due to the complementarity of resources or knowledge, the integration of culture and the persistence of trust among symbiotic subjects, it can bring a variety of shared interests such as technological innovation, resource acquisition, cost reduction, risk control and scale benefits in the process of symbiosis. The niche evolution of CVC ecological community is affected by a variety of mechanisms. Competition and symbiosis are driven by interests and affected by ecological balance. Interest driven mechanism is the internal growth mechanism of CVC ecological community in a certain innovation and entrepreneurship ecological environment. The power source is the pursuit of maximizing individual interests by large enterprises and entrepreneurial enterprises. Large enterprise population and entrepreneurial enterprise population integrate relevant resources through horizontal symbiosis, vertical symbiosis or dynamic alliance, eliminate or reduce resource bottlenecks, and promote the smooth development of large enterprises and entrepreneurial enterprises. Therefore, as a core part of the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, CVC ecological community shows a nonlinear and exponential growth trend. Only through effective symbiotic cultivation, symbiotic energy will be continuously generated and guide the circular development of new symbiotic relations in evolution. As an important mechanism in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, CVC ecological community symbiosis cultivation mechanism maintains the stability of symbiotic relationship through value co creation and distribution through adaptation, adjustment and aggregation among system populations, so as to promote the balance and healthy development of the ecosystem and the continuous improvement of the value of the whole innovation ecosystem.

This paper investigates why industrial firms conduct Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) investment in entrepreneurial companies. I test alternative views on CVC by exploiting the entry, investment, and termination decisions of CVC divisions. CVC entry concentrates in firms that experience deteriorations of internal innovation. At the investment stage, CVCs select startups with a similar technological focus but that have a non-overlapping knowledge base, and they integrate technologies generated from these ventures that create strategic value. CVCs are terminated when parent firms’ innovation recovers. Overall, the strategic desire to fix innovation weaknesses after adverse shocks motivates firms to adopt CVCs.