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Title Exploring investment processes between traditional venture capital investors and sustainable start-ups
ID_Doc 34000
Authors Wöhler, J; Haase, E
Title Exploring investment processes between traditional venture capital investors and sustainable start-ups
Year 2022
Published
DOI 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.134318
Abstract Venture capital is an important funding source for sustainable entrepreneurship and, thus, drives sustainable development. However, sustainable startups have trouble acquiring venture capital. Hence, existing literature focuses on dedicated impact investors or aims to understand why traditional venture capitalists (tVCs) avoid sustainable investment opportunities. In contrast, this study investigates investment decisions from venture capitalists without a dedicated "green" focus on sustainable startups. We investigate about 80 cases containing business plans and decision documents of sustainable and non-sustainable new ventures. Thereby, we explore whether investors react differently to sustainable business models. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and topic modeling, we find that tVCs do not integrate sustainability into their decision justification. However, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) reveals that tVCs argue more emotionally when writing about a sustainable business case. However, this is not only the result of a stronger emotional connection to sustainability, as it might also be influenced by emotional contagion from entrepreneurs' business plans.
Author Keywords Sustainable entrepreneurship; Venture capital; Investment decision -making; Investors? emotions; Emotional contagion; Topic modeling
Index Keywords Index Keywords
Document Type Other
Open Access Open Access
Source Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED)
EID WOS:000874806500006
WoS Category Green & Sustainable Science & Technology; Engineering, Environmental; Environmental Sciences
Research Area Science & Technology - Other Topics; Engineering; Environmental Sciences & Ecology
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