The Venture Capital behavioral bias and the ecosystem investment flows : A comparative quantitative study about the relationship between Venture Capitalist's drivers and their investment behavior in Stockholm and Silicon Valley

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to test if there is bias in the Venture Capital investment decision-making process towards ecosystems. To guide the research and ensure the fulfillment of the study’s main purpose, we will analyze two specific ecosystems (Stockholm and Silicon Valley). This choice is motivated by their respective importance (Worldwide and Nordics reference) in the global entrepreneurial landscape. The aim is to make an empirical contribution regarding how a herding behavior from Venture Capital investments can drive irrational investment flows towards specific ecosystem such a Silicon Valley, regardless available information towards other ecosystems, in this case, Stockholm. Most researches until today have been focusing on the assessment of startup-focused factors which we believe only picture partly the attractiveness of a startup ecosystem. In our perception, environmental factors in which the ecosystem take place also play an essential role in the attractiveness of an ecosystem to invest in. Is there a behavioral bias in the investment decision processes of Venture Capital regarding startup ecosystems? To assess the presence or absence of a behavioral bias in the investment decision of Venture Capital investors, we are first going to establish an objective attractiveness score using environment-based factors. These factors are going to be combined into six main variables that picture the environmental attractiveness of both ecosystems. In a second time, we are going to submit these six variables to two populations of investors operating in each ecosystem. To do so, we will operate a quantitative study of Stockholm and Silicon Valley-localized private Venture Capital investors towards our different environmental variable. This will enable us to obtain their specific drivers toward these variables and therefore adapt our objective attractiveness scores to obtain weighted attractiveness scores. In a third time, we are going to compare our obtained weighted attractiveness scores per ecosystem with the investment flows effectuated respectively in both ecosystems in 2016. To be able to compare both settings on the same range, we are going to calculate both investment flow data: investment volumes and number of deal closed per capita. The results of this comparison will then bring us either a correlation relation between weighted attractiveness and investment flows per capita for both ecosystems, infirming our theory or a non-correlative relation, which would confirm our theory. Indeed, a non- correlative relation will show that investors do no follow a rational investment behavior based only on the attractiveness of their ecosystem.