Abstract:

Scholars, practitioners and policy makers widely recognize that new technology-based firms (NTBFs) play a decisive role for the static and dynamic efficiency of any economic system (Audretsch, 1995; Bertoni et al., 2011). In the academic context, the literature dealing with the growth of academic spin-off (e.g. Ayoub et al., 2017; Galati et al., 2017; Rodríguez-Gulías et al., 2017) investigated which factors help to explain why such small firms experiences high/low growth rates and eventually either become leaders in the industries in which they operate or even manage to create a new industry. Among the others, venture capital is often mentioned as one of the main reasons that justify the exponential growth of technology-based firms.

This is due to:
(i) venture capital investors own superior scouting capabilities and are able to identify firms with hidden value and provide them with the necessary financing (Colombo and Grilli, 2007),
(ii) a venture capital investment is a signal of the quality of companies for uninformed third parties (Bertoni et al., 2011), and
(iii) firms also benefit from the business contact network of venture capital investors (Lindsey, 2008).

The literature dealing with the intersection between venture capital and academic spin-off is characterized by a huge number of scientific studies. In our opinion, there is the need to provide an overview of the main themes investigated. This could serve to highlight both outdated and emerging themes. Through a systematic review of the literature on the topic, we aim at identifying reasonable and significant clusters of research papers and articles in objectively justifiable patterns and sets that make possible the understanding of thematic areas evolution, that can be useful for the definition of future research avenues. To reach our objective, we will apply a structured text mining process to extract relevant knowledge from their abstract. More in details, a method to apply text categorization to shape available research abstracts into logical categories will be implemented. Finally, we will characterize each cluster of papers, corresponding to a different thematic area, discussing the evolution of trends over time and possible future research direction.

References:
[1] Ayoub, M. R., Gottschalk, S., & Müller, B. (2017). Impact of public seed-funding on academic spin-offs. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 42(5), 1100-1124.
[2] Bertoni, F., Colombo, M. G., & Grilli, L. (2011). Venture capital financing and the growth of high-tech start-ups: Disentangling treatment from selection effects. Research Policy, 40(7), 1028-1043.
[3] Colombo, M.G., & Grilli, L. (2007). Funding gaps? Access to bank loans by high-tech start-ups. Small Business Economics 29, 25-46.
[4] Galati, F., Bigliardi, B., Petroni, A., & Marolla, G. (2017). Which factors are perceived as obstacles for the growth of Italian academic spin-offs? Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 29(1), 84-104.
[5] Lindsey, L. (2008). Blurring firm boundaries: The role of venture capital in strategic alliances. The Journal of Finance, 63(3), 1137-1168.
[6] Rodríguez-Gulías, M. J., Rodeiro-Pazos, D., & Fernández-López, S. (2017). The growth of university spin-offs: a dynamic panel data approach. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 29(10), 1181-1195.

Keywords:

Venture capital, entrepreneurial university, literature review, text mining.