Abstract:  In recent years, the effect of the policy of demand-side management driven by consumption, investment and export is getting worse, which results in the economic growth of China is slowing down. Innovation is a main source of economic development, so supply-side structural reform driven by innovation must be an inevitable choice for promoting the economy growth of China. Entrepreneurial companies are the main subjects of innovation. Venture capital is regarded as an effective tool to promote innovation of entrepreneurial enterprises. Thus, we attempt to promote innovation from the prospect of venture capital and entrepreneurial enterprises. However, at present, the information asymmetry of China is serious and the financial institutions lack financial tools to avoid risk. Meanwhile, the development of venture capital started late in China, and venture capital has lower risk tolerance. It will inevitably affect the venture capitalists’ investment objectives, selection of investment stages, preference for technologic innovation and innovation performance of entrepreneurial companies. Therefore, it is of great importance for the development of venture capital and the industrial structure upgrading of China to accurately assess whether venture capital that enters into entrepreneurial companies on different time will prefer entrepreneurial firms that have higher R&D investment and how venture capital that enters into entrepreneurial companies on different time affects the innovation performance of entrepreneurial firms.
In this paper, taking venture capitals’ technology preference before entering into the entrepreneurial companies and entry time into account, we put forward a logic thought that venture capitals’ technology preference, entry time and innovation performance of start-up firm. And we use Propensity Score Matching method analyzing whether venture capital that enters into entrepreneurial companies on different time will have technology preference and examining the effect of venture capital that enters into entrepreneurial companies on different time on the innovation performance of start-up firms.
The sample used in empirical analysis consists of manufacturing companies listed on China’s Growth Enterprise Market from 2009 to 2012, which is a specialized financing platform for entrepreneurial companies with high technology in China. We manually collected the venture capital information from the companies’ prospectuses, Venture Capital Development Report in China (2008-2015) and the dataset of Zero2IPO Group, and the patent application quantity data, containing the invention patent quantity, utility model patent quantity and design patent quantity, from the Patent Office of the People’s Republic of China.
The results show that venture capitals that enter into firms during 1 year before IPO don’t prefer start-up firms that have higher R&D investment and also don’t improve the start-up firms’ innovation performance remarkably, neither the incremental innovation nor radical innovation. However, venture capitals that enter into the firms during 1-2 year before IPO prefer start-up firms that have higher R&D investment and dynamically promote the innovation performance of start-up firms remarkably, but as time goes on, the contribution of venture capitals on entrepreneurial companies’ innovation performance gradually decreases, and the effect of venture capitals on the incremental innovation of entrepreneurial companies is greater than it is on the radical innovation. From the results, we can see that venture capitals that enter into the companies earlier prefer entrepreneurial firms that have higher R&D investment, while venture capitals that enter into the companies later don’t prefer entrepreneurial firms that have higher R&D investment. Moreover, venture capitals that enter into the entrepreneurial companies earlier have a positive effect on the innovation performance of entrepreneurial companies, while venture capitals that enter into the entrepreneurial companies later have no significant effect on the innovation performance of entrepreneurial companies. Furthermore, venture capitals that enter into the entrepreneurial companies earlier have a positive effect on the radical innovation and the incremental innovation of entrepreneurial companies, and the effect of venture capitals on the incremental innovation of entrepreneurial companies is greater than it is on the radical innovation, while venture capitals that enter into the entrepreneurial companies later have no significant effect neither on the radical innovation nor the incremental innovation.
In the future, it will be the key point for venture capital development to solve the information asymmetry between entrepreneurial companies and venture capitals, enhance the risk control abilities of venture capitals, and drive venture capitals to invest in entrepreneurial companies in the early stage.
The possible contributions of this paper are as follows: first, taking venture capital’s technology preference before entering into the entrepreneurial companies and entry time into account, we put forward a logic thought that venture capital’s technology preference, entry time and innovation performance of start-up firm and analyze the selection effect of venture capitals that enter into entrepreneurial companies on different time on the entrepreneurial firms that have higher R&D investment and the different effect of venture capitals that enter into entrepreneurial companies on different time on the innovation performance of entrepreneurial firms. Second, we consider the dynamic impact of venture capitals on the innovation performance of entrepreneurial companies, and according to the heterogeneity of innovation, analyze the effect of venture capitals that enter into entrepreneurial companies on different time on the radical innovation performance and incremental innovation performance of entrepreneurial firms. Third, this paper considers the non-randomness when venture capitals select the entrepreneurial companies, and use the propensity score matching method to correct for the possible sample selection bias if estimate use the existing linear regression analysis method, which makes the evaluation results more accurate and credible.

Key words: venture capital, innovation, propensity score matching