Mitigating the Partner Uncertainty for Venture Firms in Cross-border Corporate Venture Capital Investment

Abstract

Despite the growing importance of corporate venture capital (CVC) in the venture capital market, little scholarly attention has been devoted to cross-border CVC investment. Venture firms perceive higher risks of technology leakage in cross-border CVC investment than they do in domestic CVC investment due to geographical and cultural disparity. Given that venture firms would not receive CVC investment in the presence of the partner uncertainty, we argue that the likelihood of cross-border CVC investment increases with the strength of intellectual property protection (IPP) regime, the investment timing (i.e. funding round number), and the industry unrelatedness with the corporate investor. Additionally, we investigate how the venture firm’s complementary resource need interact with the partner uncertainty in decisions for cross-border CVC investment. By examining 2,873 CVC investment transactions in the period 1994-2009, we found supporting evidence for the strength of IPP regime and the industry unrelatedness in mitigating the partner uncertainty of foreign corporate investors. However, the effectiveness of these factors is moderated by the type of resources that the venture firms need from the foreign corporate investors.