Science Research Management

Science Research Management ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (7): 189-199.

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Has venture capital spurred firms′ technological innovation in China?

Xia Qinghua, Le Yi   

  1. School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, Hubei, China
  • Received:2019-06-27 Revised:2020-04-10 Online:2021-07-20 Published:2021-07-19

Abstract:    Most high-technology companies have used venture capital funds in order to get started. Venture capital always seems to be closely related to technological progress. Previous research findings of the impact of venture capital on the technological innovation of firms are inconsistent. At present, Chinese Internet giants nurtured by venture capital have been growing rapidly and driving a new wave of innovation and entrepreneurship. However, the U.S. crackdown on ZTE and Huawei has given people a clear understanding of technological innovation performance of Chinese firms. Does venture capital investment stimulate Chinese firm′s technological innovation in the process of building innovation nation? Does its effect mechanism exist?
   The existing literatures are lack of typicality and representativeness of research samples, incomplete definition of venture capital institutions, single innovation measure and absence of intermediate role research. It is difficult to make convincing answers to the above questions. In view of this, the paper selects all listed companies on ChiNext as the samples, and investigates how venture capital affects technological innovation of Chinese firms through a perspective of innovation input and outcome with innovation production model. 
   The data analyzed in this paper come from the two main data sources: CSMAR and initial public offering of stock and listing on ChiNext instruction manual from CNINFO. After final screening, we obtained 708 listed companies on ChiNext from October 30, 2009 to May 30, 2018 as the samples. We evaluate the innovation performance from the perspective of innovation input and outcome. Among them, innovation input is the logarithm of internal R&D expenditure, and innovation outcome is the logarithm of the sum of patent applications and approvals. The patents include invention patents, utility model patents and appearance patent. 
   We have designed two panel regression models of innovation production. First, we test the model of the presence or absence of venture capital backing on technological innovation. Second, we further test the model of venture capital characteristics on technological innovation. We reach the following conclusions. 
   Firstly, whether the firm is backed by venture capitalists does not have a significant positive impact on its innovation input and outcome. The performance of technological innovation without venture capitalists backing is similar to that of firms with venture capitalists backing. Because some venture capitalists grandstand firms′ initial public offerings, and the main purpose is to make money quickly through Pre-IPOs. The listing standards reflect focus on profitability and compliance, the lack of requirements for innovation has led some firms and venture capital institutions to concentrate on meeting the requirements for listing, thereby weakening technological innovation capabilities.
    Secondly, the number of venture capital institutions has a significant positive impact on innovation input and outcome. The performance targets in the investment contract have an incentive effect, change the business needs into motivations. Employees strive to achieve their goals, improve firm performance in many aspects. The more firm gets venture capital institutions, the more investment contracts be signed. One of the results of target strengthening is that the firm′s technological innovation ability has been improved, and the incremental effect has been maintained in multiple technical characteristic markets.
    Thirdly, the shareholding ratio of venture capital institutions has a significant negative influence on innovation input and outcome. By increasing the firm value, the controlling shareholder can exchange less equity for as much risk capital as possible. The controlling shareholder often increases the firm value by improving technological innovation performance and enhancing earnings expectations. The increasing of firm value limits venture capital institutions to increase their shareholdings ratio. This implies that the higher the shareholding ratio of venture capital institutions is, the more it will erode profits of controlling shareholders. The controlling shareholder has no intent to increase the firm value, which has led to a decline in technological innovation performance.
   Fourthly, the venture capital investment amount has a significant positive impact only on innovation input, but has no impact on innovation outcome. Due to the investment ceiling, venture capitalists have limited ability to enhance the firm value. Venture capitalists diversify investments to avoid investment risks. Although concentrated investment in a new technology can increase the return on investment, it will hinder diversification of technologies and the new technology may be replaced. Therefore, according to the applicability of technology and market share, venture capitalists will increase R&D investment and reinvest in various technology projects of the firm. Because many domestic firms do not care about the manifestation of innovation results, many innovations are not available in the form of patents. In addition, some high-investment R&D projects ended in failure, and the increased risk of technological transformation led to more sunk costs.
   Furthermore, the causal-steps empirical results show that for firms with venture capitalists backing, the mediation effect of R&D investment is statistically significant with 83.11% of the number of venture capital institutions on patents being mediated. The test reveals R&D investment plays a mediating role between the number of venture capital institutions and patents. The innovation outcome of firms is mainly from the R&D investment to produce under the cumulative effect of the number of venture capital institutions.
   The above conclusions show that: (1) Venture capital is not a decisive factor for technology innovation. (2) The incentive effect of venture capital on technological innovation is better than the capital effect. (3) Venture capital has promotion effect while at the same time also inhibition effect on technological innovation.
   This paper has the following enlightenment for venture capitalists, firm founders and policy makers. First, venture capitalists not only finance but also advise start-up entrepreneurs and thereby add value to new firms. They should follow the rules of long-term value investing. Second, firms should continue to invest in R&D and transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, which will make firms gain a competitive advantage in business. For firms wishing to get venture capital funding, they should focus on the multiple impacts of venture capital characteristics on technological innovation. Third, the government should shift from ‘encouraging development’ to ‘regulating management’ for the development of the venture capital industry. The listing standards should focus on technological innovation capabilities and the growth of firms, and compromise on the level of firm profitability. Withdrawal of venture capital after listing must be strictly restricted based on market liquidity.

Key words: venture capital, technological innovation, R&D investment, patent, ChiNext