The Role of Corporate Venture Capital Investments in the Market for Technology (Corporate VC)

Abstract:

New ventures in high-tech sectors are crucial contributors to the renewal of technologies, industries, and economies. Patenting is a particularly important activity for high-tech ventures because many of their assets are knowledge based, and could not be protected from imitation or signaled to investors in the absence of intellectual property rights (IPR). However, we know little about how ventures make these important assessments and decisions. In my research project, I intend to trace a venture’s likelihood to sell patents back to its investors. In particular, I focus on investments from corporate venture capital (CVC) investors. I reason that this particular type of investor is different from investors with primarily financial goals along two primary dimensions: (a) they have access to complementary assets and (b) they have technological goals for their investments.