Authors
Federico Munari, Martina Pasquini, Laura Toschi
Publication date
2015/12
Journal
The Journal of Technology Transfer
Volume
40
Pages
948-975
Publisher
Springer US
Description
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 …
Scholar articles
F Munari, M Pasquini, L Toschi - The Journal of Technology Transfer, 2015