风险投资机构的网络位置与成功退出:来自中国风险投资业的经验证据

Venture Capital Firms’ Network Positions and Their Successful Exits: Empirical Evidence from China’s Venture Capital Industry

本文研究中国本土风险投资机构间的网络联结对投资结果的影响。运用清科数据库2000年1月1日至2009年12月31日的数据,研究发现风险投资机构的网络位置对成功退出有显著的影响——风险投资机构的网络中心性越高,成功退出的可能性越大。具体而言,本文的研究结论可概括如下:投资机构的网络联结数量越多,成功退出的可能性越大;投资机构的网络联结质量越高,成功退出的可能性越大;投资机构促成的网络联结数量越多,成功退出的可能性越大;投资机构收到的网络联结数量越多,成功退出可能性越大。

Network ties between organizations are both widespread and important, as they allow organizations to gain access to resources that may be difficult to develop or acquire otherwise. Network ties also feature prominently in the venture capital industry. Venture capital firms tend to syndicate their investments with other venture capital firms, rather than investing alone, which gives rise to the coinvestment networks. This paper focuses on the impact of network ties between China＇s local venture capital firms on their investment outcomes. Using data from Zero2IPO Database during the period from January 1st of 2000 to December 31st of 2009, after controlling for other known determinants such as investment experience, syndication size, investment round, market competition, exit condition, as well as investment year and industry fixed effects, we find that venture capi- tal firms＇ network position exerts significant influence on the ratio of successful exit, that is, venture capital firms with higher network centrality could expect higher ratio of successful exit. Specifically, our findings can be summarized as follows： （1） Degree centrality influences exit significantly, indicating that venture capital firms benefit from having many ties; （2） Eigenvector centrality exercises the most significant influence, suggesting that the quality of network ties is of great power over explaining successful exit; （3） The effect of betweenness centrality on successful exit is insignificant, illustrating that the ability to act as a broker between other venture capital firms is not of great importance; （4） Outdegree centrality has the largest impact on successful exit economically, showing that the capability of generating network ties is very important; （5） Indegree centrality also affect exit significantly, proving that receiving more ties is helpful for venture capital firms to exit successfully. To test robustness of our findings, we use a wide range of specifications. It is clearly shown that our finds are strong and robust.