IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v46y2015i4p323-347.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Specialization and Competition in the Venture Capital Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Yael Hochberg
  • Michael Mazzeo
  • Ryan McDevitt

Abstract

An important type of product differentiation in the venture capital (VC) market is industry specialization. We estimate a market structure model to assess competition among VCs—some of which specialize in a particular industry and others of which are generalists—and find that the incremental effect of additional same-type competitors increases as the number of same-type competitors increases. Furthermore, we find that the effects of generalist VCs on specialists are substantial, and larger than the effect of same-type competitors. Estimates from other industries typically show the incremental effects falling as the number of same-type competitors increases and the effects of same-type competitors as always being larger than the effects of different-type competitors. Consistent with the presence of network effects that soften competition, these patterns are more pronounced in markets that exhibit dense organizational networks among incumbent VCs. Markets with sparser incumbent networks, by contrast, exhibit competitive patterns that resemble those of other, non-networked industries. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Yael Hochberg & Michael Mazzeo & Ryan McDevitt, 2015. "Specialization and Competition in the Venture Capital Industry," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 46(4), pages 323-347, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:46:y:2015:i:4:p:323-347
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-015-9462-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11151-015-9462-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-015-9462-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven N. Kaplan & Antoinette Schoar, 2005. "Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence, and Capital Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1791-1823, August.
    2. Elie Tamer, 2003. "Incomplete Simultaneous Discrete Response Model with Multiple Equilibria," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(1), pages 147-165.
    3. Yael V. Hochberg & Alexander Ljungqvist & Yang Lu, 2007. "Whom You Know Matters: Venture Capital Networks and Investment Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 251-301, February.
    4. Andrew M. Cohen & Michael J. Mazzeo, 2007. "Market Structure and Competition among Retail Depository Institutions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 60-74, February.
    5. Federico Ciliberto & Elie Tamer, 2009. "Market Structure and Multiple Equilibria in Airline Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(6), pages 1791-1828, November.
    6. Yael V. Hochberg & Alexander Ljungqvist & Yang Lu, 2010. "Networking as a Barrier to Entry and the Competitive Supply of Venture Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(3), pages 829-859, June.
    7. Bygrave, William D., 1988. "The structure of the investment networks of venture capital firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 137-157.
    8. Hochberg, Yael V. & Lindsey, Laura A. & Westerfield, Mark M., 2015. "Resource accumulation through economic ties: Evidence from venture capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 245-267.
    9. Katja Seim, 2006. "An empirical model of firm entry with endogenous product‐type choices," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 619-640, September.
    10. Reiss, Peter C, 1996. "Empirical Models of Discrete Strategic Choices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 421-426, May.
    11. Shane Greenstein & Michael Mazzeo, 2006. "The Role Of Differentiation Strategy In Local Telecommunication Entry And Market Evolution: 1999–2002," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 323-350, September.
    12. Paul Gompers & Anna Kovner & Josh Lerner, 2009. "Specialization and Success: Evidence from Venture Capital," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 817-844, September.
    13. Henry Chen & Paul Gompers & Anna Kovner & Josh Lerner, 2010. "Buy Local? The Geography of Venture Capital," NBER Chapters, in: Cities and Entrepreneurship, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1805-1844 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Florida, Richard & Kenney, Martin, 1988. "Venture capital and high technology entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 301-319.
    16. Michael J. Mazzeo, 2002. "Product Choice and Oligopoly Market Structure," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(2), pages 221-242, Summer.
    17. Bresnahan, Timothy F & Reiss, Peter C, 1991. "Entry and Competition in Concentrated Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 977-1009, October.
    18. Joshua Lerner, 1994. "The Syndication of Venture Capital Investments," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 23(3), Fall.
    19. David Dranove & Anne Gron & Michael J. Mazzeo, 2003. "Differentiation and Competition in HMO Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 433-454, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Suting Hong & Konstantinos Serfes & Veikko Thiele, 2020. "Competition in the venture capital market and the success of startup companies: Theory and evidence," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 741-791, October.
    2. Suting Hong, 2013. "Competition, syndication, and entry in the venture capital market," Working Papers 13-49, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    3. Wang, Jiancheng & Li, Xiaoye, 2023. "From “Super App” to “Super VC”: The value-added effect of China's digital platforms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    4. Batabyal, Amitrajeet A. & Yoo, Seung Jick, 2022. "Tax policy and interregional competition for mobile venture capital by the creative class," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    5. Christos Cabolis & Mian Dai & Konstantinos Serfes, 2023. "Competition and Specialization in the VC Market: A Non-monotonic Relationship," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 62(3), pages 241-269, May.
    6. TIAN, Xiaoli & KOU, Gang & ZHANG, Weike, 2020. "Geographic distance, venture capital and technological performance: Evidence from Chinese enterprises," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    7. Gonzalez-Uribe, Juanita, 2020. "Exchanges of innovation resources inside venture capital portfolios," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100924, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. González-Uribe, Juanita, 2020. "Exchanges of innovation resources inside venture capital portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 144-168.
    9. Christian Hackober & Carolin Bock, 2021. "Which investors’ characteristics are beneficial for initial coin offerings? Evidence from blockchain technology-based firms," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(8), pages 1085-1124, October.
    10. Jia, Ning & Wang, Dan, 2017. "Skin in the game: General partner capital commitment, investment behavior and venture capital fund performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 110-130.
    11. Bayona, Anna & López, Ángel L., 2018. "Silent financial interests and product innovation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 109-112.
    12. Hull, Tyler J., 2021. "The effect of venture capitalists straying from their industry comfort zones," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    13. Cristina Quintana-García & Carlos A. Benavides-Velasco & Vanesa F. Guzmán-Parra, 2016. "Science-based Firms Going Public: The Role of Patent Indicators and Top Management Teams," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 243-259, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christian Bontemps & Raquel Menezes Bezerra Sampaio, 2020. "Entry games for the airline industry," Post-Print hal-02137358, HAL.
    2. Xiao, Mo & Orazem, Peter F., 2011. "Does the fourth entrant make any difference?: Entry and competition in the early U.S. broadband market," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 547-561, September.
    3. Kathleen Cleeren & Frank Verboven & Marnik G. Dekimpe & Katrijn Gielens, 2010. "Intra- and Interformat Competition Among Discounters and Supermarkets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 456-473, 05-06.
    4. Kline, Brendan & Tamer, Elie, 2012. "Bounds for best response functions in binary games," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 166(1), pages 92-105.
    5. Bontemps, Christian & Kumar, Rohit, 2020. "A geometric approach to inference in set-identified entry games," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 218(2), pages 373-389.
    6. Das, Sanjiv R. & Jo, Hoje & Kim, Yongtae, 2011. "Polishing diamonds in the rough: The sources of syndicated venture performance," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 199-230, April.
    7. Zhiyang Liu & Zhiqi Chen, 2014. "Venture Capital Networks and Investment Performance in China," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1-2), pages 97-111, June.
    8. Jeremy T. Fox & David H. Hsu & Chenyu Yang, 2012. "Unobserved Heterogeneity in Matching Games with an Application to Venture Capital," NBER Working Papers 18168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Jeremy T. Fox, 2010. "Identification in matching games," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(2), pages 203-254, November.
    10. Rin, Marco Da & Hellmann, Thomas & Puri, Manju, 2013. "A Survey of Venture Capital Research," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 573-648, Elsevier.
    11. Wang, Lanfang & Wang, Susheng, 2021. "Unusual investor behavior under tacit and endogenous market signals," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 76-97.
    12. Andrew Cohen & Beth Freeborn & Brian McManus, 2013. "Competition And Crowding Out In The Market For Outpatient Substance Abuse Treatment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(1), pages 159-184, February.
    13. Qing Yao & Shaodong Ma & Jing Liang & Kim Christensen & Wanru Jing & Ruiqi Li, 2022. "Effects of syndication network on specialisation and performance of venture capital firms," Papers 2211.00873, arXiv.org.
    14. Andrew Metrick & Ayako Yasuda, 2011. "Venture Capital and Other Private Equity: a Survey," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(4), pages 619-654, September.
    15. Zhang, Yuejia & Mayes, David Geoffrey, 2018. "The performance of governmental venture capital firms: A life cycle perspective and evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 162-185.
    16. A. Ronald Gallant & Han Hong & Ahmed Khwaja, 2018. "The Dynamic Spillovers of Entry: An Application to the Generic Drug Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1189-1211, March.
    17. Paul L. E. Grieco, 2014. "Discrete games with flexible information structures: an application to local grocery markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(2), pages 303-340, June.
    18. Lei Zhang, 2019. "Founders Matter! Serial Entrepreneurs and Venture Capital Syndicate Formation," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 43(5), pages 974-998, September.
    19. Christian Bontemps & Rohit Kumar, 2019. "A Geometric Approach to Inference in Set-Identified Entry Games," Working Papers hal-02137356, HAL.
    20. Andrew M. Cohen & Beth A. Freeborn & Brian McManus, 2007. "Competition and Crowding-Out among Public, Non-Profit and For-Profit Organizations: Evidence from Outpatient Substance Abuse Treatment," Working Papers 52, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:46:y:2015:i:4:p:323-347. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.