Paper info: Is It Really Speed We Need? The Role Of Venture Capital In Biotech Start-Ups
Title
Is It Really Speed We Need? The Role Of Venture Capital In Biotech Start-Ups
Authors
Alexandra Waluszewski
Uppsala University
Sweden
Torkel Strömsten
Stockholm School of Economics
Sweden
Place of Publication
The paper was published at the 19th IMP-conference in Lugano, Switzerland in 2003.
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Abstract
Venture capital's engagement in is most often considered as a kind of salvation ? a possibility for projects to finance the journey to become established companies. However, only a very few percent of all start-ups manage to attract venture capital, and of these not more than 2 of 10 venture capital financed start-ups survive the development journy. For those who enter a venture capital financed development journey, this will be strongly influenced by the logic of the financing firm. The acting of the venture capital firm is coloured by its available capital is liquidated at a known date, often 10 years from the day the fund is founded. During this time the venture capital firm must invest, manage and divest in the firms in order to be able to distribute the proceeds to the limited partners of the VC fund. With this logic in behind, the venture capital firm is forced to manage its portfolio firms in a certain direction and at a certain speed. Thus, the development of the start-up company's resource base and consequnetly, of its supplier-customer interfaces, have to fit with these restrictions. However, is it always speed a new start-up need? The paper discuss how some important physical and social resources and their embedding into user interfaces are coloured by the logic of the venture capital firm ? for good and for bad.