Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to answer three questions: (1) Which countries invest more capital in green firms? (2) What kind of industries do venture capitals (VCs) invest in? (3) Do VCs invest more capital in green firms?
Design/methodology/approach
First, the authors provide summary statistics of the key variables for green and non-green firms. Then the authors use figures to plot the growth of green firms over time. Next, the authors use descriptive data to study VC-invested firms for the top 10 countries and industries for all firms, green firms and non-green firms. Finally, the authors compare the VC investors' characteristics and investment behavior between green and non-green firms.
Findings
This study documents that venture-backed investments in clean technologies have increased dramatically in the number of deals and in the total amount of dollar volume over time. This paper provides evidence that VC firms invest more in green firms in each deal than in non-green firms. The United States and European countries play an important role in funding clean technologies across countries, and this study’s results suggest that VC investors play a considerable role in shaping the development of green finance.
Originality/value
This paper makes the first attempt to investigate the role of VCs in clean technologies to support carbon neutrality, providing initial evidence on venture capitalists' investment efforts towards carbon neutrality. The paper also has practical implications for start-up firms that raise capital and venture capitalists who finance green start-ups.
Keywords
Citation
Li, D., Liu, Y., Sun, M., Wang, X. and Xu, W. (2024), "Does venture-backed innovation support carbon neutrality?", China Finance Review International, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 191-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/CFRI-12-2022-0253
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited
1. Introduction
Global warming is harmful to the environment, causing a rise in sea levels, a change in precipitation patterns, an increase in drought and flood risk, and threats to biodiversity. It is widely accepted that global warming is largely caused by increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In recent years, carbon neutrality has been attracting growing attention in achieving a carbon dioxide balance by removing the same amount of carbon dioxide as is emitted into the atmosphere. Using clean energy to achieve carbon neutrality or carbon-free renewable energy is strongly encouraged to reduce carbon dioxide amounts around the world [1].
Venture capital (VC) investors provide an important source of financing for start-ups and have contributed to the success of many innovative technology firms, such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft. However, it is not clear whether VCs are involved in helping to finance clean technologies that support carbon neutrality. On one hand, VCs may be reluctant to invest in green firms that develop clean technologies because these firms may have a high risk of failure. On the other hand, VCs could be a big player in financing green firms as this could have a large positive social impact and potential high expected returns.
In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by investigating the investment behavior of VCs in clean technologies that support carbon neutrality. Our results are summarized as follows. First, using Pitchbook's data of more than 65,000 venture capital (VC) investments in 110 countries from 2011 to 2022, we find that venture-backed investments in clean technologies increase substantially in the number of deals and total amount of dollar volume over time. The number of VC-backed green firms has increased significantly from 6 in 2011, to 221 in 2021. Additionally, the total deal values increased from 282 million USD in 2014 to over 16 billion USD in 2022.
Second, we find that green firms tend to be smaller but raise more capital than non-green firms. The average number of employees is 160.8 for green firms as opposed to 319.10 for non-green firms. The average (median) total capital raised by green firms is 118.58 (17.59) million dollars compared with 60.23 (14.81) by non-green firms. We also find that green firms tend to have a lower number of VC investors, with a median of five, than non-green firms, with a median of six VC investors.
Third, we find the United States, India, China, Germany and the UK to be the five countries with the most venture-backed investment in clean technologies. The number of VC-backed green firms is 107 in the US, 43 in India, 39 in China, 31 in Germany and 29 in the UK. These countries account for about 58% of green firms globally, and VCs from the US, China, the UK and India are the major players in non-green VC-backed firms in the market. For example, American and Chinese VCs invested in 7,899 and 2,228 non-green firms over the past decade, respectively, accounting for 41 and 11% of our sample. Collectively, the developed economies of the US, Germany and the UK and the developing economies of China and India exhibit significant investment in clean technologies.
Fourth, having examined the countries with VC-backed investments in green firms, we turn our analysis to the industries of green and non-green firms. We find electronic cars, energy analytics and management, electronic bicycles and lithium-ion batteries to be the top four green industries receiving VC investment, while artificial intelligence, digital industries, cloud computing and financial and banking services are the top non-green industries backed by VCs. We observed 91 firms in electronic cars, 62 firms in energy analytics and management, 48 firms in electronic bicycles and 29 firms in lithium-ion batteries, accounting for 60% of the total green firms. Other industries related to clean energy are hydro energy, alternative energy, decarbonation, wind energy, nuclear energy and supercapacitors.
Fifth, we investigate the characteristics of VCs by reporting the summary statistics of VCs in all deals, green firm deals and non-green firm deals. We find that larger VCs tend to invest in green deals. VCs in green firm deals tend to have substantially larger investor asset under management (AUM) and investor dry powder than those in non-green firm deals. The mean and median investor AUM is 58.8 and 0.85 billion USD in green deals compared with 36 and 0.38 billion USD in non-green deals, respectively. Additionally, the mean investor dry powder for VCs in green deals is 641.5 million USD as opposed to 575.51 million USD for VCs in non-green deals.
Finally, we find that green firms tend to receive more capital from VCs in most of the rounds of investment. The difference in average deal size between green and non-green firms is significant at the 1% level for the second, fourth and eighth rounds. For example, in the second round of investment, all firms, green firms and non-green firms have 12.83, 20.18 and 12.69 million of average deal size, respectively. The difference in the average deal size between green and non-green firms is 7.48 and is statistically significant at the 1% level.
Our paper is related to the recent evolving literature on VC investment behavior. Paglia and Harjoto (2014) find that VC investment has a positive impact on the net sales and employment growth of single entity enterprises. Cumming and Zhang (2019) find that disintermediated individual angel investments are more affected by legal, economic and Hofstede's cultural conditions than are intermediated VC investments. Besides, the investee firms funded by angels are less likely to successfully exit. Block et al. (2019) show that revenue growth is the most important investment standard of VC, followed by product or service appreciation, management team performance and profitability. Venture capital investors tend to focus on the company's income growth, business model, and current investors. Fuchs et al. (2021) argue that the educational ties between the VC managers and the CEOs of the investee company play a positive role in sourcing deals and winning competitive transactions. Fu et al. (2022) find that for successful start-ups, the later capital valuation could reasonably represent the economic value of the company. Using a comprehensive data set of VCs, we show that VCs are actively taking part in financing clean technologies to support carbon neutrality.
The rest of this paper is composed of the following parts: Section 2 describes the data and variable construction, Section 3 presents the empirical results, and Section 4 concludes the paper.
2. Data and variable construction
We start this section by describing how to obtain our sample and construct variables for the empirical analyses. We then provide summary statistics on these key variables.
2.1 Data description
We collect venture-backed investment data from the Pitchbook database of Morningstar, which provides details of start-up financing transactions at the deal level as well as characteristics at the company level and the VC investor level. The Pitchbook database has been widely used in VC research.
Our sample period is from 2011 to 2022, with a total of 20,281 start-ups. We identify our sample of green firms by firstly screening concise descriptions of products and businesses using keywords related to clean energy, such as clean power, new energy, renewable energy, sustainable power, hydrogen, solar, fusion, nuclear, wind turbine, lithium and electric vehicles. We then manually checked each company's website to confirm further whether the firm's main business was related to clean energy. This led to identification of 391 green firms and 19,890 non-green firms.
2.2 Variable description and summary statistics
This subsection gives the summary statistics of the key variables. We report total number of employees, total capital raised (in million dollars), the number of VC investors and the number of VC rounds of VC-backed firms in our sample. We also consider the characteristics of VCs who invest in green and non-green firms. For each firm, we compute the average number of deals, deal size (in millions), asset under management (AUM), investment professional count and investor dry powder across its VC investors [2]. We then compute the mean, median, minimum, maximum and standard deviation of these variables for all firms, green firms and non-green firms.
Table 1 reports the summary statistics of these key variables for all firms. Over the full sample, the average firm has 316 employees, raised 61.37 million dollars of capital, has 8.81 VC investors and 2.91 rounds of VC investment. Compared with non-green firms, green firms tend to be smaller but have raised more capital from VCs. For example, the mean number of employees is 160.8 for green firms as opposed to 319.10 for non-green firms; however, the median number of employees is similar for green and non-green firms. The average (median) total capital raised by green firms is 118.58 (17.59) million dollars compared with 60.23 (14.81) by non-green firms. Additionally, we find that green firms tend to have a lower number of VC investors (a median of 5) than non-green firms (a median of 6). We obtain a similar number of financing rounds between green and non-green firms (see Table 2).
We also look at the VC investor characteristics in green and non-green firms. Across all firms, on average VC investors have 3.35 deals, 21.554 billion dollars of AUM, 126.67 of investment professionals and 899 million dollars of investor dry powder. We find the VC investors of green firms to be substantially larger than those of non-green firms. The VCs of green firms have average assets under management of 35.28 billion, investment professionals of 352.15 and investor dry powder of 817.49 million. In contrast, the VCs of non-green firms, on average, have 21.29 billion AUM, investment professionals of 122.32 and investor dry powder of 901 million. Additionally, VCs invest more capital in green firms than in non-green firms. The average deal size is 26.45 and the number of deals is 3.75 for green firms compared with 16.34 deal size and 3.35 for the number of deals for non-green firms. In summary, large VCs are more likely to invest in green firms. Green firms tend to be smaller but raise more capital than non-green firms.
3. Empirical results
3.1 Characteristics of green firms
In this section we aim to understand VCs' investment behavior in green firms.
Figure 1 plots the growth trend of green firms over time. From 2011 to 2021, the number of VC-backed green firms increases significantly from 6 to 221. The total deal value of green firm VC also made a great leap from 13.21 million in 2011 to 16.6 billion in 2021.
We aim to answer three questions: (1) Which countries invest more capital in green firms? (2) What kind of industries do VCs invest in? (3) Do VCs invest more capital in green firms?
To investigate the number of VC-backed green across countries, we report the number of firms, green and non-green, in the top 10 countries in our sample, as shown in Table 2. These countries are the United States (US), China, the United Kingdom (UK), India, France, Germany, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Spain and others. The US has 8,006 VC-backed firms comprising 40% of our sample. China is the next country for VC investment, with 2,267 VC-backed firms comprising 11.43% of firms of our sample. Thus, US and China make up more than 50% of our sample.
Next, we explore the number of VC-backed green firms across countries. Interestingly, the US, India, China, Germany and the UK are the top five countries with investments in green firms. The number of VC-backed green firms is 107 in the US, 43 in India, 39 in China, 31 in Germany and 29 in the UK, and these countries account for about 58% of the total of green firms investment. In terms of non-green VC-backed firms, VCs from the US, China, UK and India are the major players in the market. For example, VCs in the US and China invested in 7,899 and 2,228 non-green firms over the past decade, accounting for 41 and 11% of our sample, respectively. In summary, developed economies, including the US, Germany and the UK, and developing countries, including China and India, exhibit greater investment in clean technologies.
Having examined the countries with VC-backed investments in green firms, we turn our analysis to industries of green and non-green firms. We find that electronic cars, energy analytics and management, electronic bicycles and lithium-ion batteries are the top four green industries receiving VC investments, while artificial intelligence, digital industries, cloud computing, and financial and banking services are the top non-green industries backed by VCs. There are 91 firms investing in electronic cars, 62 firms in energy analytics and management, 48 firms in electronic bicycles and 29 firms in lithium-ion batteries. These firms and industries account for 60% of the total of green firms. Other industries relating to clean energy are hydro energy, alternative energy, decarbonation, wind energy, nuclear energy and supercapacitors.
3.2 Characteristics of venture capital firms
We explore the characteristics of VCs by reporting the summary statistics of VCs in all deals, green firm deals and non-green firm deals, as shown in Table 3. For all deals, on average, VCs have a 90.65 investment professional count, an investor AUM of 36.6 billion and an investor dry powder of 577 million. We find that VCs in green firm deals tend to have substantially larger investor AUM and investor dry powder than those in non-green firm deals. The mean and median investor AUM is 58.8 and 0.85 billion in green deals compared with 36 and 0.38 billion in non-green deals, respectively. Additionally, the mean investor dry powder for VCs in green deals is 641.5 million as opposed to 575.51 million for VCs in non-green deals. We find a similar pattern for the median of investor dry powder. VCs in green deals have the same median investment professional count of 3 as VCs in non-green deals. However, VCs in green deals have a lower average investment professional count, with 43.38 in green deals compared with 91.83 in non-green deals. This result is illustrated in the fact that non-green deals have a standard deviation of 3738.8 compared with 750.85 in green deals. In summary, we find that larger VCs tend to participate in green deals.
Table 1 shows that the average deal size and the number of rounds of investment across VCs in green firms are larger than those for VCs in non-green firms. Do green firms receive larger capital inflows than non-green firms in each round of VC-backed investment? To answer this question, we investigate the average deal size across each round of VC investments for all firms, green firms and non-green firms. Table 4 reports these results. We also report the difference in average deal size between green and non-green firms for each round of investment.
We find that green firms tend to receive more capital from VCs in most rounds of investment. The difference in the average deal size between green and non-green firms is statistically significant at the 1% level for the second, fourth and eighth rounds. For example, for the second round of investment, all firms, green firms and non-green firms have 12.83, 20.18 and 12.69 million of average deal size, respectively. The difference in the average deal size between green and non-green firms is 7.48 and is highly significant. We observed a larger difference in the average deal size between green and non-green firms in the eighth round of investment. The average deal size was 138.99 million for all firms, 184.09 million for green firms and 130.26 million for non-green firms. The difference of 53.83 million is economically large. In the eleventh round the difference in average deal size between green and non-green firms is the largest, at 154.45 million, but is statistically insignificant. Additionally, VCs invest more rounds in green firms than in non-green firms. The largest number of rounds for green firms is 16, whereas for non-green firms is 11.
In summary, we observe that green firms receive more VC capital in almost every round of financing and longer rounds of VC capital.
3.3 Interconnectivity of the venture investments in clean technology
Through global coalition, the world is aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. One country may provide VC investment in clean technologies for its own firms or foreign firms and receive VC investments from other countries. It is interesting to examine the interconnectivity of venture investments in clean technologies. To this end, we plot the network of the aggregated VC investments in clean technology among different countries. As shown in Figure 2, we can easily observe the relative role of different countries in VC investments in clean technology. The United States has the most connections with other countries, suggesting that it plays a dominant role in providing and receiving VC investment in clean technology across all the countries. European countries, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland have many global connections, suggesting that European countries are very active in funding clean technologies to support carbon neutrality. In contrast, the largest developing countries of China and India have far fewer connections with other countries, indicating that these countries rely on their own VC investments for clean technologies. Asian developed countries, such as Japan and South Korea, appear to be small players in VC investments in clean technologies.
4. Conclusions
This paper investigates the investment behavior of VCs in green and non-green firms. Using Pitchbook's data on more than 65,000 VC investments in 110 countries from 2011 to 2022, we document that venture-backed investments in clean technologies have increased dramatically in the number of deals and in the total amount of dollar volume over time. The United States, India and China are the top three countries with the most venture-backed investment in clean technologies. Electronic cars, electronic management and lithium-ion batteries are the top industries receiving venture-backed investment, and it is clear that VC firms invest more in green firms in each deal than in non-green firms. The United States and European countries play an important role in funding clean technologies across countries, and our results suggest that VC investors play a considerable role in shaping the development of green finance.
Our paper makes the first attempt to investigate the role of VCs in clean technologies to support carbon neutrality, providing initial evidence on venture capitalists' investment efforts towards carbon neutrality. The paper also has practical implications for start-up firms that raise capital and venture capitalists who finance green start-ups.
Figures
Figure 1
Growth of green firms over time
Figure 2
Interconnectivity of venture capital investments in clean technology across countries
Summary statistics
| N | Mean | Median | Min | Max | Std dev | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All firms | ||||||
| # of Employees | 20,281 | 316.05 | 62.00 | 30.00 | 2250000.00 | 16055.99 |
| Total Capital Raised (Million) | 18,264 | 61.37 | 14.87 | 0.00 | 15701.39 | 248.32 |
| # of VCs | 20,281 | 8.81 | 6.00 | 1.00 | 161.00 | 9.08 |
| # of VC Rounds | 19,860 | 2.91 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 16.00 | 1.72 |
| # of Deals | 20,281 | 3.35 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 21.00 | 2.02 |
| Deal Size (Million) | 18,283 | 16.53 | 5.60 | 0.00 | 3130.65 | 54.50 |
| Investor AUM (Million) | 15,843 | 21554.04 | 741.00 | 1.50 | 4,800,087 | 167603.89 |
| Investment Professional Count | 18,180 | 126.67 | 8.80 | 1.00 | 98001.50 | 2011.11 |
| Investor Dry Powder (Million) | 15,742 | 899.55 | 181.19 | 0.00 | 139163.99 | 3060.31 |
| Green Firms | ||||||
| # of Employees | 391 | 160.80 | 61.00 | 30.00 | 10000.00 | 559.03 |
| $ Total Capital Raised (Million) | 356 | 118.58 | 17.59 | 0.00 | 6416.98 | 460.56 |
| # of VCs | 391 | 7.94 | 5.00 | 1.00 | 51.00 | 8.15 |
| # of VC Rounds | 384 | 3.03 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 | 1.82 |
| # of Deals | 391 | 3.75 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 14.00 | 2.29 |
| Deal Size (Million) | 352 | 26.45 | 6.26 | 0.00 | 651.76 | 70.10 |
| Investor AUM (Million) | 296 | 35276.94 | 734.41 | 1.50 | 2300018.47 | 18462.01 |
| Investment Professional Count | 344 | 352.15 | 8.88 | 1.00 | 32670.00 | 2799.58 |
| Investor Dry Powder (Million) | 274 | 817.49 | 144.45 | 0.00 | 24590.61 | 2278.13 |
| Non-Green Firms | ||||||
| # of Employees | 19,890 | 319.10 | 62.00 | 30.00 | 2250000.00 | 16212.84 |
| $ Total Capital Raised (Million) | 17,908 | 60.23 | 14.81 | 0.00 | 15701.39 | 242.11 |
| # of VCs | 19,890 | 8.83 | 6.00 | 1.00 | 161.00 | 9.09 |
| # of VC Rounds | 19,476 | 2.90 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 16.00 | 1.72 |
| # of Deals | 19,890 | 3.35 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 21.00 | 2.01 |
| Deal Size (Million) | 17,931 | 16.34 | 5.58 | 0.00 | 3130.65 | 54.13 |
| Investor AUM (Million) | 15,547 | 21292.36 | 741.00 | 1.50 | 4800087.50 | 167258.13 |
| Investment Professional Count | 17,836 | 122.32 | 8.80 | 1.00 | 98001.50 | 1992.70 |
| Investor Dry Powder (Million) | 15,468 | 901.00 | 182.00 | 0.00 | 139163.99 | 3072.41 |
Note(s): This table presents the summary statistics of our key variables for all firms, green firms and non-green firms. Green firms are defined as firms that are related to clean energy such as clean power, new energy, renewable energy, sustainable power, hydrogen, solar, fusion, nuclear, wind turbine, lithium and electric vehicles. We consider characteristics at both the firm level and VC level. Firm characteristics consist of the number of employees, total capital raised and the number of VC investors. VC characteristics consist of the number of deals, deal size, investor asset under management, investment professional count and investor dry powder
Source(s): Author's own creation/work
Top 10 countries and industries for completed deals
| Panel A: Top 10 countries | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All firms | Green firms | Non-green firms | ||||||
| Country | # Firms | % | Country | # Firms | % | Country | # Firms | % |
| USA | 8,006 | 40.38% | USA | 107 | 27.86% | USA | 7,899 | 40.62% |
| China | 2,267 | 11.43% | India | 43 | 11.20% | China | 2,228 | 11.46% |
| UK | 1,451 | 7.32% | China | 39 | 10.16% | U.K. | 1,422 | 7.31% |
| India | 1,433 | 7.23% | Germany | 31 | 8.07% | India | 1,390 | 7.15% |
| France | 801 | 4.04% | UK | 29 | 7.55% | France | 786 | 4.04% |
| Germany | 669 | 3.37% | Netherlands | 17 | 4.43% | Germany | 638 | 3.28% |
| Canada | 558 | 2.81% | France | 15 | 3.91% | Canada | 546 | 2.81% |
| Singapore | 372 | 1.88% | Australia | 14 | 3.65% | Singapore | 367 | 1.89% |
| Australia | 294 | 1.48% | Canada | 12 | 3.13% | Spain | 285 | 1.47% |
| Spain | 290 | 1.46% | Sweden | 9 | 2.34% | Australia | 280 | 1.44% |
| Others | 3,687 | 18.59% | Others | 68 | 17.71% | Others | 3,603 | 18.53% |
| Total | 19,828 | 100.00% | Total | 384 | 100.00% | Total | 19,444 | 100.00% |
| Panel B: Top 10 industries | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green firms | Non-green firms | ||||
| Industry | # Firms | % | Industry | # Firms | % |
| Electronic cars | 91 | 23.58% | Artificial intelligence | 888 | 4.38% |
| Energy analytics and management | 62 | 16.06% | Digital industry | 691 | 3.41% |
| Electronic bicycles | 48 | 12.44% | Cloud computing | 416 | 2.05% |
| Lithium-ion batteries | 29 | 7.51% | Financial and banking services | 373 | 1.84% |
| Hydro energy | 24 | 6.22% | Biotech | 313 | 1.54% |
| Alternative energy | 15 | 3.89% | Big data and blockchain | 305 | 1.50% |
| Decarbonation | 14 | 3.63% | E-commerce | 229 | 1.13% |
| Wind energy | 6 | 1.55% | Healthcare | 181 | 0.89% |
| Nuclear energy | 6 | 1.55% | Food industry | 172 | 0.85% |
| Super capacitor | 2 | 0.52% | Agriculture | 162 | 0.80% |
| Others | 89 | 23.06% | Others | 16,542 | 81.60% |
Note(s): This table reports the number of VC-invested firms for the top 10 countries (Panel A) and industries (Panel B) for all firms, green firms and non-green firms
Source(s): Author's own creation/work
VC Investor characteristics
| N | Mean | Median | Min | Max | Std dev | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All deals sample | ||||||
| Investment Professional Count | 18,025 | 90.65 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 265000.00 | 3695.05 |
| Investor AUM | 7,414 | 36645.86 | 391.56 | 0.00 | 9600000.00 | 270384.72 |
| Investor Dry Powder | 6,572 | 577.08 | 28.02 | 0.00 | 277402.97 | 5001.61 |
| Green Firm Deals Sample | ||||||
| Investment Professional Count | 437 | 43.38 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 15700.00 | 750.85 |
| Investor AUM | 199 | 58844.38 | 850.00 | 0.03 | 2700000.00 | 263057.31 |
| Investor Dry Powder | 157 | 641.50 | 40.00 | 0.00 | 27484.53 | 2645.81 |
| Non-Green Firm Deals Sample | ||||||
| Investment Professional Count | 17,588 | 91.82 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 265000.00 | 3738.80 |
| Investor AUM | 7,215 | 36033.59 | 375.30 | 0.00 | 9600000.00 | 270575.95 |
| Investor Dry Powder | 6,415 | 575.51 | 27.77 | 0.00 | 277402.97 | 5045.60 |
Note(s): This table reports the summary statistics of VC investor characteristics including investment profession count, asset under management and investor dry powder for all deals, green deals and non-green deals
Source(s): Author's own creation/work
Investor characteristics
| # Round | All firm | Green firm | Non-green firm | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1.99 | 2.20 | 1.99 | 0.22 |
| 1 | 7.23 | 9.04 | 7.19 | 1.85 |
| 2 | 12.83 | 20.18 | 12.69 | 7.48*** |
| 3 | 24.55 | 40.94 | 24.20 | 16.75 |
| 4 | 34.63 | 71.65 | 33.85 | 37.80*** |
| 5 | 54.86 | 71.86 | 54.51 | 17.35 |
| 6 | 73.47 | 97.91 | 72.90 | 25.01 |
| 7 | 108.58 | 95.63 | 108.89 | −13.26 |
| 8 | 138.99 | 184.09 | 130.26 | 53.83*** |
| 9 | 185.97 | 250.94 | 184.09 | 66.84 |
| 10 | 328.18 | 311.79 | 328.52 | −16.73 |
| 11 | 167.79 | 314.52 | 160.07 | 154.45 |
| 12 | 284.89 | NA | 284.89 | NA |
| 13 | 315.08 | NA | 315.08 | NA |
| 14 | 662.33 | NA | 662.33 | NA |
| 15 | 340.00 | NA | 340.00 | NA |
| 16 | 800.00 | NA | 800.00 | NA |
Note(s): This table presents the mean number of rounds invested by VCs for all firms, green firms and non-green firms. We also report the difference in mean number of rounds between green firms and non-green firms invested in by VCs. Significance at 1% is denoted with ***
Source(s): Author's own creation/work
Notes
Zhang et al. (2022) reviewed and discussed the research progress and academic achievements of carbon neutrality.
Investor dry powder is defined as the amount of committed but unallocated capital a VC has.
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Acknowledgements
Each author has an equal contribution to this paper. The authors thank Zhiqiang Xiang for his excellent research assistance. Donghui Li would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China for financial support (Grant No. 71873058). Xinjie Wang acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 72171107) and the Southern University of Science and Technology (Grant No. Y01246110).