Fall 2015
Article
Journal of Economics & Management Strategy

Doing Well by Doing Good? Community Development Venture Capital

By: Josh Lerner and Anna Kovner

Format:Print

Abstract

This paper examines the investments and performance of community development venture capital (CDVC). We find substantial differences between CDVC and traditional venture capital (VC) investments: CDVC investments are far more likely to be in nonmetropolitan regions and in regions with little prior venture capital activity. Moreover, CDVC is likely to be in earlier-stage investments and in industries outside the venture capital mainstream that have lower probabilities of successful exit. Even after we control for this unattractive transaction mix, the probability of a CDVC investment being successfully exited is lower. One benefit of CDVCs may be their effect in bringing traditional VC investment to underserved regions: When we control for the presence of traditional VC investments, each additional CDVC investment results in an additional 0.06 new traditional VC firm in a region.

Keywords

Social Enterprise; Venture Capital

Citation

Lerner, Josh, and Anna Kovner. "Doing Well by Doing Good? Community Development Venture Capital." Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 24, no. 3 (Fall 2015): 643–663.