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This paper investigates gender disparity in investment decisions within the popular American TV show Shark Tank.

The research uses a comprehensive dataset of 925 pitches from 14 seasons and 316 episodes, covering August 2009 to May 2023.

Contrary to previous studies, the findings indicate that female entrepreneurs do n'ot face discrimination in terms of their pitching success rates, regardless of their industry affiliation. However, the authors did observe that female entrepreneurs tend to receive lower valuations, both self-assessed and in final deals. This suggests a self-imposed gender gap in venture capital and angel investing, likely stemming from lower entrepreneurial aspirations among women.

To tackle this issue, the authors propose promoting female venture capital by increasing the representation of female entrepreneurs and business angels on Shark Tank. Such role models can inspire aspiring women in these fields. Additionally, the authors believe that mixed-gender founder teams, comprising both men and women, can play a significant role in developing promising startups with viable business models.

Crowdfunding platforms are important innovations that allow nascent entrepreneurs to gain access to financial resources and crowd inputs to better refine and develop their business idea. The purpose of this paper is to investigate user-generated content (UGC) from both reward-based and equity-based crowdfunding platforms, in order to determine its implications for open and user innovation.

A total sample of 200 most funded technology products was extracted from four distinct crowdfunding platforms. A latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) analysis was performed in an attempt to identify critical latent factors. The analysis was carried out through the theoretical lens of innovation literature, in an attempt to uncover the implications for open and user innovation.

The authors were able to highlight the implications of crowd inputs for open and user innovation, as backers provided nascent entrepreneurs with several types of feedback, ranging from product co-development to strategy and marketing. Furthermore, the study provided an overview of the key differences emerging between reward-based and equity-based crowdfunding platforms in terms of crowd inputs.

The present study features intrinsic limitations of the LDA approach being adopted. More specifically, it only provides a “snapshot” in time of the current sample, rather than investigating its development over time.

The present study solidifies the value of UGC as a resource to mine for trends and feedback.

The study contributes to both the innovation literature and the crowdfunding literature. It bridges several gaps found in both literature streams, by providing empirical evidence to test and verify pre-existing exploratory research.

The venture capital industry is an important provider of capital to start-ups and has grown considerably in recent decades. This study explores how investors' gender perceptions influence venture capital investment decisions in an industry that remains highly gender imbalanced, both amongst the venture capital decision-makers and with respect to the allocation of capital to entrepreneurs.

The authors' approach was informed by a thorough literature review and in-depth qualitative interviews with ten decision-makers at some of the foremost venture capital funds in Norway. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using NVivo.

The authors' findings demonstrate that the Norwegian venture capital industry is influenced by homophily and role congruity. The authors highlight the challenges entrepreneurs face in gaining access to venture capital if they are not already members of the investors' network, a situation that results in a recycling effect that helps maintain the industry’s gender imbalance. Moreover, it appears that venture capitalists (VCs) favour masculine characteristics when assessing entrepreneurs, revealing a potential incongruence between female characteristics and perceived entrepreneurial attributes.

The authors' study contributes to and extends the extant literature on homophily and role congruity. Indeed, through investigating the gender-based perceptions of VCs, the authors shed new light on the mechanisms involved in their assessment of entrepreneurs, as well as on the drivers and barriers affecting female entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate if a firm's exchange complexity profile (that is, the linkages between the firm and its environment) influences investor behavior at the negotiation table where a firm valuation is derived.

The authors utilize Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Specifically, the authors utilize fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), a QCA variant that allows the researcher to assign graduated membership in sets.

When the authors dichotomize their positions as either higher stakes that favor the seller (high capital, low equity, high valuation) or lower stakes that favor the buyer (low capital, high equity, low valuation), and when the authors focus primarily on the equity outcome, the authors find that investors adopt a reductionist stance that adheres to a transaction cost economics logic under conditions of lower stakes and higher complexity as well as higher stakes and lower complexity conditions. The authors interpret this to mean that equity serves as a counter-balancing lever for a firm's exchange complexity configuration.

On a theoretical level, the authors showcase the exchange complexity framework and differentiate its position within the extant frameworks that address a firm's competitive advantage. More generally, the authors note that this framework brings the discipline of micro-economics and the field of strategic management closer together, providing scholars with a new tool enabling research across industries for the portfolio level of analysis.

Venture capital (VC) is an essential element in healthy entrepreneurial environments; therefore, many countries in developing entrepreneurial economies support the industry via direct or indirect government interventions. The purpose of this study is to examine through the example of the Hungarian market, whether direct or hybrid state involvement has contributed more to the growth of the invested enterprises. The findings are relevant in the design of government VC schemes and in the contracts mitigating the moral hazards inherent in government funding.

The basis of empirical research is a unique hand-collected database covering Hungarian government-backed VC (GVC) investments. Based on the financial data of investee firms, the authors investigate whether firms financed by hybrid VC involving market participants are able to outperform firms that receive pure public financing using panel regression.

Based on Hungarian evidence, hybrid VC-backed firms generated lower growth and employment than their purely government-backed peers. Both schemes showed meagre innovation activity. The conclusion is that because of the conflict of private and economic policy objectives in hybrid financing, the exposure of hybrid risk capital to moral hazard is higher than that of pure public financing. Private interests in hybrid funds can only improve investment efficiency if they are structured along the lines of market-based independent financial intermediation and the contracts imitate the ones existing amongst limited and general partners in private schemes.

The research covers the data of Hungarian government-backed firms by tracking the full range of 86 investments made in the purely government scheme and 340 firms that received funding in the hybrid scheme. The research focuses on two government initiatives, and the results are influenced by the specific regulation of the programs; therefore, the results cannot be generalized for all government agendas; they are indicative in the designs of the agendas.

There is a limited number of empirical studies investigating the impact of VC in developing markets, especially in the Central and Eastern Europe region. This firm-level research on the impact of public VC can help improve the effectiveness of development policies. By analysing the entirety of investments of a VC program that is near to its completion, the authors provide new insight into the efficiency and prospects of GVC schemes in the region.

The primary objective of this study is to consolidate the fragmented body of scholarly literature pertaining to developing entrepreneurial ecosystems, with the intent of determining prospective avenues of inquiry.

The analysis included a longitudinal distribution by category of journals with most recommendations, articles with most citations and the total number of recommendations. In addition, the authors presented a thorough explanation of the recommendations grouped by categories.

This study generated a framework that provides a comprehensive understanding of research on recommendations for the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The framework identified 74 recommendations in the fields of policy, support, culture, human capital, market and finance. The results indicated that the domain of recommendations for the entrepreneurial ecosystem is still in its infancy.

This study contributes to research on entrepreneurial ecosystems by focusing on recommendations for their development. The resulting framework can be used by policymakers to develop entrepreneurial ecosystems and by researchers in future studies.

This study investigates the relationship between the individual’s levels of innovativeness (ILI) and the individual’s intention to finance (IIF) an equity crowdfunding campaign to understand whether and to what extent individuals' personalities (IP) can foster crowdfunding success.

OLS models are applied based on survey data collected from 385 US and UK citizen respondents. Further, the baseline relationship between ILI and IIF is broken down on the basis of the interactions with two behavioral characteristics: proactive personality (PP) and openness to experience (OE).

Results show a positive relationship between individual’s levels of innovativeness and the individual’s intention to finance an equity crowdfunding campaign. Furthermore, this relationship continues to be positive when moderators are introduced in the models, demonstrating that PP and OE are personal traits that strengthen the main relationship.

Our findings contribute to enriching the stream of literature according to which equity crowdfunding is a helpful tool not only able to bridge the financial gap of companies during the first phase of their life cycle. The findings also contribute to the development of the innovation process, creating also a social identity within the crowdfunding community.

Research has examined how new ventures strengthen local economic outcomes; however, limited research examines health-oriented ventures and their impact on social outcomes, including health outcomes. Increased VC investment in healthcare service start-ups signals more activity toward this end, and the need for further academic inquiry. We examine the relationship between these start-ups and county-level health outcomes, health factors, and hospital utilization.

Data on start-ups funded via institutional venture capital from PitchBook were merged with US county-level outcomes from the County Health Rankings and Area Health Resources Files for 2010 to 2019. We investigated how the number of VC-funded healthcare service start-ups, as well as a subset defined as innovative, were associated with county-level health measures. We used panel models with two-way fixed effects and Propensity Score Matched (PSM), controlling for demographics and socioeconomic factors.

Each additional VC-funded healthcare service start-up was related to a significant 0.01 percentage point decrease in diabetes prevalence (p < 0.01), a decrease of 1.54 HIV cases per 100,000 population (p < 0.1), a 0.02 percentage point decrease in obesity rates (p < 0.01), and a 0.03 percentage point decrease in binge drinking (p < 0.01). VC-funded healthcare service start-ups were not related to hospital utilization.

This work expands our understanding of how industry-specific start-ups, in this case healthcare start-ups, relate to positive social outcomes. The results underscore the importance of evidence-based evaluation, the need for expanded outcome measures for VC investment, and the possibilities for integration of healthcare services and entrepreneurship ecosystems.

This study proposes a portfolio of new venture signals that are likely to attract investors' attention in the context of an emerging market and examines how they work in combination to affect the likelihood of obtaining funding.

The authors use data on early-stage venture capital investments for high-tech start-ups in Turkey. The authors adopt a configurational approach and use fuzzy QCA and regression analysis.

The findings suggest that financing of new ventures in an emerging economy is shaped by signals of context-specific capabilities that are required to survive and thrive in this market environment alongside and in interaction with signals of general capabilities required for business success. Different combinations of these signals provide equifinal pathways to obtain funding. Furthermore, signals that differ in type and content interact in complex ways to affect investors' decisions.

The findings suggest that entrepreneurs with no prior experience in the emerging market context can increase their chances of obtaining funding by affiliating with a venture development organization. Another promising strategy is to form a founding team that includes members affiliated with a developed country together with members who have emerging market experience. Finally, entrepreneurs may consider combining signals of context-specific capabilities with signals of general capabilities as they work in a complementary way to attract funding.

This study addresses two major shortcomings of the literature on new venture signaling, first, by positing the emerging market context as a unique signaling environment and, second, by demonstrating the value of considering signals as portfolios with potential interdependencies.

There is an increasing awareness of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in the private equity (PE) environment. While many studies deal with the implementation of ESG in the field of PE, only little is known about how the subcategory venture capital. Therefore, this study aims to answer the questions: What are the motivations for venture capitalists to consider ESG in their investment decisions? How do they implement it and what are the barriers that hinder them?

An inductive study based on semi-structured interviews with 11 investors of venture capital firms (VCs) was conducted to explore the drivers, the barriers and the strategies to implement ESG in the investment decision-making.

All investors perceive that ESG will play a major role in investment decisions in the long term. VCs have seen benefits primarily in terms of performance and commercialization of startups that incorporate the ESG aspect. Limited partners are a driving force for change in this process. No standardized framework and lack of resources for implementation are mainly assumed as barriers.

Politics and industry might support particularly smaller VCs in their implementation by providing standardized frameworks. Owing to increasing awareness and interest of ESG criteria among VCs, startups should also address these criteria.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining how ESG is currently considered in VCs’ decisions and what challenges they face. Therefore, this research contributes to the understanding of the decision-making process among venture capitalists.