Impact of venture capital network community information  transmission on investment performance

doi:10.19571/j.cnki.1000-2995.2021.10.009

Abstract

Abstract: Venture capital (VC) provides growth funds and management services for innovative start-ups. It is an important driving force for the development of high-tech industries, and it is the engine of technological change, industrial upgrading, and economic growth. VCs frequently jointly invest with others in syndicated investments that result in VC networks. The VC network has an important impact on VC investment decisions and investment performance. Existing research indicates that the VC network has the function of information transmission, and but to the best of our knowledge, no research has investigated it as an independent variable. In addition, related research on VC networks has expanded from the ego network (micro-level) perspective and the global network (macro-level) perspective to the network community (meso-level) perspective. Based on this, this paper investigates whether the community information transmission helps VC to overcome information asymmetry and development uncertainty, and thus improve its investment performance.This paper believes that moderate project information transmission can enable community members to obtain more project flows and appropriately invest in emerging industries, early stage, and outland regional start-ups, reducing costs of project screening and extracting excess returns, thereby improving investment performance. However, excessive information transmission will lead to information redundancy, increasing costs of project screening and bring information asymmetry due to investment in emerging industries, early stage, and outland regional, thus reducing investment performance. The more experience information transmission, the stronger screening capability and value-added capability of community members. This can select higher quality start-ups and provide better value-added services. They will further promote the high-quality development of start-ups, promote the success of start-ups, and provide its investment performance.Knowledge acquisition bridges the gap between information transmission and investment performance. Knowledge acquisition becomes an important mechanism for the transformation of VC community project information transmission or experience information transmission to investment performance. Therefore, we believe that knowledge acquisition will play a mediating role in project information transmission, experience information transmission, and investment performance. A highly absorbing VC can selectively learn, absorb and use the beneficial knowledge transformed by the project information and experience information of its community partners, and will maximize the refinement, internalization, and absorption of the acquired knowledge. This will enable them to screen for better quality start-ups and provide them with high-quality value-added services. However, on the other hand, VCs with strong absorptive capacity are more susceptible to historical experience or their own resources, which creates obstacles for refining, internalizing and absorbing new knowledge or new resources. This will have a negative adjustment between knowledge acquisition and investment performance.Using data from CVsource Database during the period from 2000 to 2015, we explore the impacts on and mechanisms of venture capital network community information transmission on investment performance. We find that the information transmission has a significant impact on investment performance, that is, the project information transmission has a significant inverted U-shaped impact on investment performance; the experience information transmission has a significant positive impact on investment performance. Moreover, knowledge acquisition plays a partial intermediary role in the relationship between community project information transmission or experience information transmission and investment performance. The absorptive capacity will negatively moderate the impact of knowledge acquisition on investment performance. The above results mean that information transmission can not only directly affect investment performance, but also have an indirect effect on investment performance through knowledge acquisition and absorption.The contributions of this paper are mainly reflected in the following aspects: First, this paper examines the determinants of VC investment performance from the perspective of the network community. The existing research mainly studies the impact of VC network attributes on investment performance from the ego network (micro-level) perspective and the global network (macro-level) perspective. This paper examines the impact mechanism of VC network community information transmission on investment performance and is a new attempt to study the factors affecting investment performance from the perspective of network community (meso-level). Second, this paper demonstrates the role of community information transmission in the VC process. The existing research only points out that the VC network has the function of information transmission, but does not take information transmission as an independent variable to conduct in-depth research. This paper examines the impact of project information transmission and experience information transmission on investment performance and provides empirical evidence of community information on investment performance. Third, this paper promotes research on the formation mechanism of the VC network. The VC network formed by syndication but lacks evidence on the mechanism of network formation. This paper demonstrates the role of building the VC network community to enhance investment performance from the perspective of information transmission and enriches and expands the research on VC network theory.The theoretical significance of this research is reflected in the enrichment and expansion of relevant research on information transmission theory, and at the same time, it helps to open up a new perspective for the theoretical research of the VC network from the perspective of the network community. This study provides theoretical support for the optimization and improvement of information transmission behaviors of VC network communities. The practical significance of this research is reflected in the practical guidance for VC to carry out effective information transmission activities in the context of VC communities. This research has important inspiration and practical guidance for VC to improve investment performance and promote its own development.

Key words: venture capital, network community, information transmission, investment performance

Xue Chaokai, Dang Xinghua, Yao Xi. Impact of venture capital network community information transmission on investment performance[J]. Science Research Management, 2021, 42(10): 77-84.

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Impact of venture capital network community information transmission on investment performance

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