创业投资:德国和美国的比较研究

Comparative Research on Venture Capitalists in Germany and USA

在对美国和德国的创业投资的调查研究中,对照美国的研究结果,向德国的创业投资家调查了以下两个问题:1)在评估一项投资的时候创业投资家更看重创业者什么?2)根据一项创业投资计划,他们怎样与创业企业合作。调查结果显示,在创业的早期阶段和扩张阶段,德国创业投资家评估一项商业计划时,比较关注创业企业的发展潜力。他们强调,创业者所表现出的领导才能和对市场的熟悉程度是决定创业投资的必要条件。晚期阶段的创业投资家与早期阶段的创业投资家相比,不太容易和创业者成为亲密伙伴;他们对创业企业所提供的管理帮助也比较少。创业投资公司的规模在很大程度上影响创业投资的某些投资特征。与美国的研究结果相似,大规模的创业投资公司和小规模的创业投资公司运作的差异主要在于平均投资规模。在德国,随着创业投资公司规模的扩大,其投资的地域范围也在扩大。至于投资过程,当创业投资公司是主要投资者时,投资公司的规模与其所花费的评估和沟通时间(从开始与创业者接洽到进行融资之间)负相关。融资的准备时间与创业投资公司的员工数之间的关系,小规模的创业投资公司更有效率。

This study was based on the prio resaerch in the USA. In this study, German venture capitalists were asked about what they look for in evaluating an investment and about how they work with a portfolio company following an investment.Venture stage and firm size were used to operationalize the concept of the investment process used by the interviewed German VCs in comparison to their US counterparts.As expected in the early stage, the VC evaluating an investment proposal tends to focus on the entrepreneurial capabilities.Even the expansion stage investors focused their investment decision primarily on the abilities of the entrepreneur; they emphasized demonstrated leadership and familiarity with the business market as essential.Later stage investors were less likely to serve as a confidant to the entrepreneur than early stage investors; they also provided less management assistance to their portfolio companies.Firm size measured by capital under management significantly impacted some of the investment characteristics. Similar to the U.S. results, the main difference between operations of big and small venture capital firms appears to be simply the size of their average investment.As to the size of the reported German venture capital firm increases, the geographic scope of the investments also increases.With respect to the investment process, the firm size correlates negatively with the time which generally elapses between the initial contact and funding of an investment when the venture capital firm is lead investor.An interesting result occurs when the decline of preparation time for the funding is linked to the number of firm’s staff-small venture capital firms show a higher efficiency in the investment process.