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Innovation is an important value lever, especially within small- and medium-sized companies. However, little research has examined its influence within the investment process of equity investment funds – a surprising circumstance since innovation could increase an investment’s value. This study provides insights into equity investment funds’ perspective on innovation throughout the various phases of the investment process. We conducted in-depth interviews with investment professionals from 30 German-based equity investment funds. Our results show that innovation’s importance depends on the strategic orientation of the equity investment fund type. In addition, our study provides an overview of the criteria, methods, and mechanisms equity investment funds use to support innovation. We show that the emphasis of many equity investment funds on innovation during the identification of investment targets is not reflected in the measures the fund later employs to support innovation processes within the portfolio company. This indicates potential for equity investment funds to be more actively involved in the supervision and management of innovation activities of their portfolio companies. Keywords: Venture capital, corporate venture capital, private equity, family offices, innovation, investment strategy
Corporate accelerators have emerged rapidly over the last few years and have become a cross-industrial global phenomenon. Established companies interact with startups through these programmes in a structured approach. Recent academic research shows that programmes exist with diverse characteristics, providing various resources and services such as investment capital, office space, mentoring or training to the startups. Currently, the corporate accelerator landscape is undergoing change, with companies adjusting their programme characteristics. One reason for this development seems to be that companies struggle to provide the right resources to startups. The extant corporate accelerator literature, however, does not provide any insights into the value of the different resources provided to startups in such programmes. Thus, we analyse, empirically and in-depth, one of the longest active corporate accelerator programmes, taking the startups' perspective. Investigating Wayra, the corporate accelerator of Telefónica in Germany, we shed light on what is satisfying, what is relevant and what corporates can improve on.
Innovation actors
(2019)
Firms‘ resource base is one of the determinants of their capacity to innovate. When firms’ internal base of financial, intangible or technical resources is not sufficient to realize innovation projects, resources provided by other stakeholders can mitigate innovation constraints. This cumulative dissertation intends to shed light on innovation-related collaborations and interactions of three specific kinds of actors. The first article investigates the role innovation plays for investors when screening and evaluating potential investment targets and explains to which extent the investors’ behavior re-orients towards the implementation of innovation-pushing measures once being invested. Also, the second article refers to the interaction between investors and innovative firms: Subsequent to a derivation of an industry-specific business model pattern, the second article analyzes whether and how financing of new and innovative digital health ventures differ between Europe and USA. Adopting a single case study approach, the third article focuses on the interaction between corporate accelerators and innovative firms and identifies shortcomings of Telefonica’s corporate accelerator Wayra.