• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.75-96
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• 2018

Recently, the government has been pursuing various policies to create new industries and jobs through the invigoration of start-ups. For the sustained growth of start-ups, it is necessary to look not only at the supply of risk capital but also at policies for venture capital firms that nurture and foster start-ups. The purpose of this study is to estimate the effects of the nurturing and fostering role of risk capital, such as mentorship on the performance of start-ups, and to do this we analyzed the effects, as a newly introduced form of venture capital, of mentoring by an accelerator and investor ties on the performance outcomes of start-ups. We find that mentoring and investor ties for start-up enterprises positively influence follow-up investment in start-ups. In addition, this study finds that with a younger CEO of a start-up, it is more likely that the performance of the start-up will improve. Meanwhile, when examining increases in employment as a measure of the business performance of start-ups, mentoring and investor ties are found to have a positive effect on the increase of employment at start-ups. These results suggest that there is a need to promote policies that strengthen the mentoring role of venture capital in Korea's equity finance policies and in the government's SME support policies.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly diffused across industries and societies as nations' essential strategic technology. In innovative technology, such as AI, a startup leads to technological innovation and significantly impacts the expansion of relevant industries. Thus, this study examined the trend of AI startup venture capital (VC) investments globally, focusing on ① noteworthy VC investment statuses (the number and size of the investment, company establishment, and corporate collection), ② the characteristics of each key nation's investments, and ③ the characteristics of each submarket's investments. Among the 11 countries, the results showed that Korea ranked near the bottom for absolute quantitative measures, including the number and size of investments, company establishment, and corporate collection. However, Korea has built a foundation of catching up with what AI-leading countries have established, considering Korea's high growth rate in the number and size of investments and a recent mega-round. This study has practical implications in that it determined the AI startup VC investment status of Korea's rival countries, not only G2 (US and China). The results can be used in policy-making. Furthermore, identifying the AI industry's submarkets and analyzing each market's VC investment status could be used to establish strategies for the AI industry and R&D.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.21-46
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• 2013

The purpose of this paper is to find impacts of financial activities-financing and investment of Venture Firms during pre-listing periods on the firms' Venture Firm's listing(delisting). The several ratios financial variables relevant to the financing and investment were examined whether there are difference or not between two venture firms groups. The results of study can be summarized as follows. First, the firms of successful group have fewer numbers of equity financing and higher times of premium in issuing stocks than those of failed firms but there is no significant difference in the required time from startup to listing the KOSDAQ. Second, there is no significant difference in the ratio of capital increase in IPO between two groups but additional survey reveals that the successful firms financed equity in IPO by higher numbers of premium than failed firms, which can makes the major shareholder of the successful firms maintain high rayios share of stock. Third, the ratio of working capital investment of the successful firms is significantly higher than that of failed firms, on the other hand the failed firms' ratios of equipment and repayment investment are higher than those of successful firms. Finally, the ratio of R&D investment has no difference between two groups, this result is against the expectation, which is to be further analyzed.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.150-177
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• 2018

We review two specific risk management strategies of venture capitalists (VCs): deal syndication and domain specialization with respect to their explicit role in adjudging and managing the overall magnitude of information asymmetry risks. These are analyzed for three distinct categories of VC firms as classified by their funding stage focus (early vs. late), ownership type (foreign vs. domestic) and the human capital composition of the core VC team (entrepreneurial vs. investor). The analysis is based on both secondary data and primary data for active 72 VC firms in India. Syndication is moderately important for entrepreneurial VC firms, but not at all important for early-stage focused and foreign VC firms. This finding is distinctly different from what has been conventionally observed in the literature. Among the various arenas of domain specialization, high-technology focus is important for all segments of VC firms. In the context of investment-stage focus, foreign VC firms exhibit growth-stage specialization, while entrepreneurial VC firms concentrate on earlier investment stages.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

As the response to climate change becomes a more pressing global issue, so do expectations for climate change in the green information and communication technology (ICT) industry and the possibility of solving environmental problems through ICT. However, because the green ICT industry is still in its early stages, there is little research on it. Understanding the startup ecosystem in the industry is helpful for recognizing innovation trends in emerging technologies such as green ICT. In this regard, this paper investigates the current state and characteristics of the green ICT ecosystem and presents implications based on an examination of startup venture capital investment trends and submarket identification in the green ICT industry as emphasized by the carbon neutrality paradigm shift. The analysis included 4,807 companies and 3,990 funding records, as well as exploratory data analysis and "k-means" clustering techniques.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.9-21
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• 2014

Source and use of investment money in the content business has been subject to closer attention, This study attempts to identify the information asymmetry problem in the performing art are, focusing on the Korean musical play. Despite the various discussions in the venture capital practice in the performing art area, there has been few studies analyzing the investors' perspective. While juggling with the 'artistic value' and 'rate of return', the investors are concerned about the 'transparency' of the performing art practice. When coupled with the subjective judgment of 'artistic value', the information asymmetry between the investor and the performing art manager becomes more delicate. In the performing art business, 'SPC(Special Purpose Company)' is considered a possible solution to organize the deal structure in this field. This study analyzes the role of SPC regarding the information asymmetry problem.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.101-108
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• 2014

The creation of new venture firm has been regarded as a key of creating more job opportunities and discovering new value engines for various industries. It is positively expected that venture capitals play an important role of supporting the process. Nevertheless, there is a scant of research efforts to analyze empirical data for understanding cross-correlations between investment of venture capital and new venture foundation. To fill the gap, this study investigated sets of time-series data from 1998 to 2014 in the context of South Korean economy. The results reveal that venture capitals have contributed significantly to the quantitative increase of venture firms. In addition, the findings show that the creation of new venture fails to yield a direct impact on resolving young unemployment problems in short term. The paper contributes to the research community on new venture foundation by providing insightful views.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.19-29
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• 2012

We made a regression analysis on the early IPO of venture capital investments in Korean IPO market. First, we found that it was likely to shorten the period to IPO in companies which were fast growing with a good operating cash flow, but these companies had a higher possibility of the earning management. Second, companies with more assets and larger size of the board of directors did not take companies public any earlier. Third, a better corporate governance also had no impact on the time period to IPO in the newly public firms. The findings above clearly show that venture-backed companies in Korea pursue the tendency of an early IPO. This phenomenon was much clearer when the companies were invested in by multiple venture capital firms than by a single investor. In general, venture capital firms invest in companies which are fast growing and which have a good operating cash flow. On the other side, venture capitals make investee companies go public earlier by manipulating operating earnings, so that they themselves may exit early. In conclusion, this research has shown that venture capitals in Korea do not play a positive role in the corporate transparency. This is the paradox of venture capital investment and this also shows the current status of Korean venture capital firms.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.1-22
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• 2022

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of VC investment on the IPO and post-IPO performance of Chinese firms. Design/methodology/approach - By utilizing CSMAR and VentureXpert database, we construct a firm-year panel data covering all listed firms in the Chinese stock market from 2006 to 2018. Findings - First, we find that VC-backed firms are significantly less underpriced than non-VC-backed firms. Our results show that the initial IPO-day return of VC-backed firms is 0.16% lower than that of non-VC-backed firms. Next, we find that VC-backed firms demonstrate significantly worse operating performance than non-VC-backed firms after the IPO. In the next three years following the IPO, VC-backed firms underperform non-VC-backed firms by 0.4% in terms of ROA and by 0.6% in terms of ROE. Research implications or Originality - Our results support the Grandstanding Hypothesis, among several competing hypotheses regarding the effect of VC investment, which suggests that VCs window dress their IPO firms for their early exit at the expense of a poor operating performance of the IPO firms after going public.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1-12
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• 2022

This paper put the goal on boosting up early startup investment by delivering and positioning SAFE as the main early startup investment type in Korea. In particular, this paper proves the better fitting of SAFE as to the early stage of venture investment than these of Convertible Note. This paper as referring the previous studies of SAFE as the major keystone issues determining active SAFE applying (legal positioning issue, tax treatment issue, failure of inducing the following investment with uncertainty over maturity) proposes boosting up policy of Korean SAFE. First, as to accounting treatment of SAFE, it suggests SAFE to recognize legally as "the capital" on the Korean Venture Investment Act of introducing SAFE actively as venture investment type. Second, as to tax treatment issue, it proposes on amending venture indication rule as the best alternative of resolving tax issue by accepting SAFE as the investment meeting to venture investment requirement. Third, as benchmarking foreign cases, it delivers the method of modifying foreign SAFE Contract Format by adding up more clauses about safety vehicles against the failure of the following investment and fixing maturity date and event. Ultimately, all resolutions of this paper fall on highlighting the role of Korean Venture Investment Act and Ministry of SMEs and Startups.