When Do Venture Capitalists Add Value

Explores when and if venture capitalists add value to the firms that they back. Focus in this analysis is on context and the venture capitalist-CEO relationship. Value is considered from the viewpoint of the venture's CEO and the lead venture capital investor. Data used were collected through survey and interviews with 51 venture capital-backed ventures in the United States. These ventures included service and low-tech firms but were primarily high-tech firms. The results did not support the proposition that venture capital is more valuable in earlier stages of the venture or when environmental uncertainty is high. Some support was shown for the hypothesis that high-tech ventures benefit more from venture capital. Frequent interaction between the venture capitalist and the CEO was shown to provide greater value, as was more open interaction between these parties. Finally, venture capitalist involvement is positively associated with venture performance. Given these findings, it is concluded that although money is important to the success of the venture, the venture capitalists themselves add value. The assistance of venture capitalists is especially useful to high innovation ventures. (SRD)