Formal and informal venture capital and networking: The effect of clusters.

摘要

This thesis reports on the findings of qualitative telephone interviews and on the analysis of a secondary database. This study compares firms located in clusters with firms that are not located in clusters in order to determine differences in networking, differences in equity financing, and the interactions between networking, financing, and location. In particular, the objective is to determine whether there is an advantage to clustered firms in terms of access to risk capital, and whether this advantage is solely due to the increased networking within clusters or whether there is an additional effect. The results show that clustered firms may have an advantage related to the increased likelihood that firms within a cluster will apply for risk capital. It is unclear what role networking plays in this, other than the observation that clustered firms are characterized by more weak ties in their networks. Further research is called for.