Exploring Recent Phenomena in Entrepreneurial Finance

This dissertation consists of three essays that address important and very recent issues in the field of entrepreneurial finance. The first essay, examines the reasons that drive recently emerging multibillion-dollar valuation levels of so-called ‘unicorns’. The second essay, investigates the current status of collaborations between incumbent firms and ventures in order to cope with the ongoing digital transformation. Based on empirical findings, this dissertation develops a collaboration model between incumbents and ventures depending on the venture’s development stage. The third essay, draws from Initial Coin Offering (ICO) data to explore how early stage investors influence the outcomes of ICOs and the overall survival rate of blockchain technology-based firms. This dissertation contributes to the research on entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurship and more specifically to the understanding on recent phenomena concerning the influence of investors’ characteristics on finance decisions and collaborations and subsequently their influence on ventures’ success. First, it is presented that being founded within a cluster region and in particular within the Silicon Valley area, increases significantly the chances for ventures to achieve ultra-high valuation levels. Furthermore, the results show empirically that a considerable share of ultra-high valuation levels is devoted to aggressive and inorganic growth strategies in order to gain large market shares rapidly and achieve a market-dominating role. Thereby, it is found that corporate investors play a decisive role for ventures to become successful. Second, this dissertation provides evidence from the German market that corporate investments are mainly driven by the ambition of incumbents to gain momentum within the digital transformation of existing business models. However, based on the empirical findings, the trend is identified that incumbents collaborate increasingly with more nascent ventures and apply non-equity-based approaches. Third, it is demonstrated that the beneficial influences of venture capital investors hold also in the context of the blockchain technology. Particularly, evidence is provided that the specialization and the reputation of investors has a positive influence on the success probability of blockchain technology-based firms. Thereby, it is show again the dispositive role of corporate investors. Each essay, discusses the theoretical and practical contributions and provides novel insights on recent phenomena in the area of entrepreneurial finance.