Venture Capital Winners: A Configurational Approach to High Venture Capital‐Backed Firm Growth

Abstract The positive effect of venture capital (VC) on firm growth has been widely documented. However, there exists a large variation in growth of VC‐backed firms, with only a small number reaching a substantial size. Prior studies have linked the variation in growth of VC‐backed firms to differences in resource endowments of the entrepreneurial top management team, the firm or the venture capitalist, without considering their potentially complex interactions. In addition, the literature has taken strong growth aspirations in VC‐backed firms as a given, without examining potential variations thereof and their potential implications. Therefore, this study aims to examine which configurations of resource portfolios and growth aspirations lead to high VC‐backed firm growth. In order to do so, we take an inductive, theory‐building approach and build on fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Our results show that strong growth aspirations of the entrepreneurial top management team are a necessary condition for high VC‐backed firm growth. Furthermore, we identify four configurations which, in combination with strong growth aspirations, may lead to high VC‐backed firm growth.