The times they are a‐changin’: how venture capital firms change their investment practices under the COVID-19 pandemic
研究了风险投资公司在新冠疫情下如何调整短期投资实践，发现不可观察的投资实践比可观察的更容易改变，且年轻、小型或网络中心性高的公司更不愿改变可观察实践。
Abstract This study examines how venture capital (VC) firms have modified their short-term investment practices in response to the COVID-19 crisis. We categorise VCs’ investment practices according to their level of visibility to external parties and hypothesise that unobservable investment practices are more likely modified than observable ones, since VC firms must comply with the objectives stated in their contracts with limited partners (LPs), and deviations may be viewed negatively by investors. Changing investment practices may have a negative impact on a VC firm’s reputation, but this potential reputational damage could vary along with the reputational capital already possessed by the VC firm and its degree of exposure in a VCs’ network. An empirical analysis based on a global survey of VC firms confirms these theoretical presumptions, shedding light on how the industry operates and responds to unique crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, younger and smaller VC firms are found to be more reluctant than larger and older ones to modify observable investment practices. Similarly, VC firms that are more central in a network of investors are also found to be more hesitant to modify observable investment practices.