We study the investment patterns of different types of venture capital (VC) investors in Europe: independent VC, corporate VC, bank-affiliated VC and governmental VC. We rely on a unique dataset that covers 1,663 first VC investments made by 846 investors in 737 young high-tech entrepreneurial ventures in seven European countries. We compare the relative specialization indices of the different VC investor types across several dimensions that characterize investee companies: industry, age, size, stage of development, distance from the investor and country. Our findings indicate that VC investor types in Europe differ substantially in their investment patterns when compared with one another and that, in terms of investment patterns, governmental VC investors appear to be the most distinct type of VC investor. The investment patterns of different VC investors are stable over time and similar across different European countries. Finally, the investment patterns of the different VC investor types in Europe are significantly different from those observed in the US.

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We use the theory of organizational ecology to study how governmental venture capital (GVC) affects the investment behavior of private venture capital (PVC). Because of its objectives and dominant competencies, GVC is a unique organizational species that occupies a different niche than and is conceived to establish mutualistic relations with PVC. Accordingly, the greater the presence of GVC in a VC ecosystem, the more PVC investors should be attracted toward GVC's niche. We consider several relevant niche dimensions at the company (age and size), industry (biotechnology) and regional (competitiveness) levels. Our analysis of 1,239 PVC investments in Europe confirms most of our predictions.

The global crisis that began in the second half of 2008 abruptly changed the business context, inducing firms to react by modifying their strategies. This paper examines changes in innovation and internationalization strategies that high-tech entrepreneurial ventures implemented to react to the crisis. Relying on insights from the behavioural theory of the firm and threat-rigidity theory, we explore the antecedents of firms' investments in development of new products and in expansion in international markets and the consequences of these changes on firms' growth performance. Econometric results from a sample of 140 Italian high-tech entrepreneurial ventures support the view that the stock of resources accumulated by larger firms, firms' innovation and internationalization investments in the pre-crisis period and firms' cash flow determine the extent of the two changes. The effects of these changes on firms' short-term growth performance are positive only for investments in development of new products.

In this paper, we study how the geography of venture capital (VC) and the location of entrepreneurial ventures affect the propensity of the latter to seek external equity financing. We analyse a sample of 533 European high-tech entrepreneurial ventures and examine their external equity-seeking behaviour in the 1984-2009 period. We find that ventures are more likely to seek external equity when the local availability of VC is higher, whereas the level of competition of the local VC market plays a negligible role. The stimulating effect of the availability of VC on the demand for external equity rapidly decreases with distance and vanishes at approximately 250 km. It also vanishes when national borders are crossed, except for countries at a close cultural and institutional distance.Moreover, the distance decay of the stimulating effect of the availability of VC varies with the characteristics of prospective VC investors, namely, their private or public ownership and governance and their reputation. These results have important implications for the policy that European countries and the European Commission should implement to foster the demand for VC by entrepreneurial ventures, thereby improving the functioning of the VC market in Europe.

Governmental venture capital funds (GVCs) are created by policymakers around the world to support young innovative companies (YICs) with the aim of "bridging the equity gap". In this paper, we study the heterogeneity in the design of GVC programs in Europe and identify the design features that are most effective in achieving the desired outcomes of this policy. Specifically, we focus on the probability that GVC-backed companies will receive additional funds from private venture capital investors and, ultimately, changes in their growth and innovation outcomes. We find that the choices of location, colocation, syndication and industry focus of a GVC program substantially influence the extent to which it is able to achieve such goals. Important policy implications are discussed. "…Not only are we faced with a serious investment gap; we are caught in an investment trap. […] While investment is taking off in the U.S., Europe is lagging behind. Why? Because investors lack confidence, credibility and trust. […] …What we are going to do is to set up the right system that will use available public money to leverage additional capital that would have never otherwise been mobilised. Every public euro mobilised can generate additional investment that would not have happened otherwise. And it can create jobs…"

Aim Species richness is one of the commonest measures of biodiversity, and is a basis for analyses at multiple scales. Data quality may affect estimations of species richness, but most broad‐scale studies do not take sampling biases into account. We analysed reptile richness on islands that have received different sampling efforts, and assessed how inventory completeness affects the results of ecogeographical analyses. We also used simulations to evaluate under what circumstances insufficient sampling can bias the outcome of biodiversity analyses. Location  Mediterranean islands. Methods We gathered data on reptile richness from 974 islands, assuming better sampling in islands with specific inventories. We used Moran's eigenvector mapping to analyse the factors that determine whether an island has been surveyed, and to identify the relationships between reptile richness, geographical parameters and anthropic parameters. We simulated islands, mimicking patterns of true data, and sampled them with varying effort. Simulated richness was analysed using the same approach used for real‐world data. Results The probability that islands were sampled for reptiles was higher in large, human‐populated islands. The relationship between human impact and reptile richness was negative in well‐surveyed islands, but positive in islands that had not been systematically surveyed, because densely populated and accessible islands receive better sampling. In simulations, analyses successfully retrieved the relationships between species richness and human presence only if the average species detection probability was ≥75%. Poorer sampling resulted in biased regression results. Main conclusions  Human activities may strongly affect biodiversity, but human presence and accessibility improve sampling effort and thus the quality of biodiversity information. Therefore, regressing known species richness on parameters representing human presence may result in apparent positive relationships. These two facets of human presence (positive on biodiversity knowledge, negative on actual biodiversity) represent a major challenge for ecogeographical studies, as not taking them into account would bias analyses and underestimate human impact.

This paper contributes to studies on dynamic capabilities (DCs) by showing that a neglected environmental contingency – i.e. the occurrence of a jolt – shapes the DCs–performance relationship. We focus on high-tech entrepreneurial ventures because these are the firms that jolts affect most; in so doing, we also advance the understanding of DCs in the entrepreneurship field. We argue that, in the aftermath of an environmental jolt, the high-tech entrepreneurial ventures that use internationalization and new product development capabilities to modify their resource configuration and regain environmental fit enjoy better performance. Econometric estimates on a sample of 340 Italian high-tech entrepreneurial ventures confronting the consequences of the global economic crisis that began in 2008 confirm that separately using these two DCs has a positive performance effect. This effect is stronger for relatively smaller ventures. Interestingly, despite synergies should arise from the combined use of the two DCs, we do not detect any superadditive effects.