We're in it for the long haul: How corporate venture capital helps alleviate financial market frictions in social entrepreneurship

Abstract

The financing of social entrepreneurship is a noted challenge. The scale of problems and potential solutions are daunting, and the time required for solutions to come to fruition often involve investment horizons that are too long for traditional investors. Using an exploratory case study of the energy industry we provide evidence that industry incumbents are one potential solution to help alleviate the market coordination problem inherent to financing social ventures. As a going concern, we find that corporate investors exhibit temporal benevolence and can provide investment horizons necessary for solutions to be developed and diffused. At the same time, commitment from an incumbent brings resource predictability that encourages others in the value chain to engage with social ventures that show promise. In this regard incumbents are able to participate in their industry's evolution while providing an underappreciated role in supporting the social entrepreneurship ecosystem.