From the lab to the stock market? The characteristics and impact of university-oriented seed funds in Europe

Federico Munari (), Martina Pasquini () and Laura Toschi ()

The Journal of Technology Transfer, 2015, vol. 40, issue 6, 948-975

Abstract: This work investigates the role of university and PRO-oriented seed funds (USFs)—VC funds with an explicit mission to make investments in academic spin-offs and support technology transfer—as instruments for addressing funding gaps and facilitating the commercialization of academic technologies. We first offer an overview of USFs in Europe, highlighting their heterogeneity and principal characteristics. Second, we exploit a unique data set of 1,497 start-ups (including 733 USF-backed start-ups and another 764 start-ups backed by other VC funds) to analyze how USF-backed companies perform in terms of exit rates, staging, and syndication levels when compared with non-USF-backed companies. Empirical evidence suggests that USF-backed companies perform better in staging and syndication but worse in exit rates. Moreover, our analyses show that, within the group of USF-backed companies, the ones that can attract more follow-on funding and investors are those financed by USFs that are internally managed by a universities/PROs and are linked to universities with high scientific rankings. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: University-oriented seed funds; VC investments; University technology transfer; Funding gap; Academic spin-offs; M13; G24; G28; L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jtecht:v:40:y:2015:i:6:p:948-975

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DOI: 10.1007/s10961-014-9385-4

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