The impact of mixed syndication between government and private venture capital on investees in Estonia

Abstract

PurposeThe study compares the impacts of mixed syndication venture capital (VC) investment and private VC (PVC) investment on the transitional performance indicators of intangible assets, fixed assets, liabilities and number of employees in Estonia. It also examines the impact of mixed syndication on investees' sales and profit.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted panel data regression analyses based on the dataset consists of yearly data from 2006 to 2015 for more than 187,000 unlisted firms in Estonia.FindingsResults showed that mixed syndication had a significant positive effect on the number of employees of investees but not on investees' sales and profit. PVC investment had a significant positive effect on investee sales but not on the transitional performance indicators of investees.Originality/valueThe study has two unique research contributions. First, it investigates the impact of syndicated investment on investees' transitional performance indicators in addition to performance indicators. Second, it focuses on Estonia, an emerging country that has somewhat achieved success in fostering information and communications technology startups and is one of the earliest emerging countries to implement a mixed syndication VC investment policy.