University venture capital in big data, regional and historical perspective: where and why has it arisen?

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the international comparative analysis of university venture capital (UVC), providing a quasi-experimental design for follow-up research and practice. The US venture capital industry, with its unicorn focused high-growth format opened up a venture capital gap. UVC transmutes academic innovation into high-tech firms, industries and regional renewal, filling interstitial funding gaps among angel, public and private venture capital offers. It is a knowledge-based industrial policy by Another Name, with direct/explicit and indirect/implicit versions, on a continuum with variation depending upon shifting ideological and competitive concerns. Beyond as of right “womb” provision, UVC capstones an academic innovation ecosystem of technology transfer, incubation and acceleration, translational research, proof of concept funds and entrepreneurship education. Venture capital, exemplified by Sand Hill Road, de-emphasizes classic regional development objectives, neglecting appropriability conditions such as academic and regional circumstances that UK and China prioritize. More modest firm formation outcomes are dismissed as failures, with entrepreneurs encouraged to return to the entrepreneurial churn. We examine the origin and development of UVC from macro, meso and micro, historical and comparative perspectives. Multi-method/multi-sample, comparative case study, and big data analytics show the constraint, variety, and early affinity of UVC to academic icons with significant untapped potential to inspire widespread economic and social advance.