Scalability, venture capital availability, and unicorns: Evidence from the valuation and timing of IPOs
研究发现，创业企业的可扩展性越高，其IPO估值越高，且风险资本可得性会增强这一效应；同时，高可扩展性企业会推迟IPO，但仅在风险资本充裕时如此。
The growing phenomenon of highly valued startups (e.g., unicorns) poses fundamental questions for entrepreneurship research. We posit that venture scalability and VC funding availability may explain startups' IPO valuations (and timing). Highly scalable ventures may not only capture very large market opportunities, but their scaling strategies may also be constrained by the governance and regulatory burdens faced by public firms. Accordingly, we hypothesize and find that more scalable ventures undertake IPOs at higher valuations, which is positively moderated by VC funding availability. Highly scalable startups also delay their IPOs for longer but only when VC funding availability is high.