Wiebke Stranz

• Risk and return management is one of the core competencies of venture capital companies (VCCs) as they iest in young, innovative firms with a high return potential, but also high risk potential. Due to the liability of smallness, newness and financial constraints young, innovative firms are constantly under the threat of failure. In the scope of this dissertation are four related studies – three empirical studies and one literature review – analyzing the risk and return management of VCCs. In particular, risk assessment and risk management and value adding activities in the post iestment phase were examined. In the first article, authors analyze which risks are relevant over the whole venture capital (VC) iestment process and show how VCCs assess and documents risks in their deal documents. The second article studies risk management practices of VCCs. We show that the experience and the skills of the corresponding iestment manager have a significantly negative impact on the failure risk of a venture. Article three analyzes value creation measures applied by VCCs. The results suggest that VCCs are highly engaged in supporting ventures in financial and human capital issues as well as in establishing strong governance mechanisms. The fourth article also deals with the foregone topic. This paper provides a literature analysis on value adding activity measures in VC iestments, synthesizes the variables measuring the main levers of value adding and identifies directions for improvement in terms of data, variables and methods.