Corporate venture capital and the boundaries of the firm1☆

This study presents a novel measure of the overlap between a Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) investor and an entrepreneurial firm in the product, market, and technology spaces. Using this measure, we present an alternative parallel framework to understand an incumbent's decision to invest in or acquire a startup, grounded in the boundaries of the firm theory. The CVC's distinct features regarding property rights and incomplete contracting are preferred when the overlap is low. Also, CVC investments spur the greatest ex-post change in firm scope when the startup has moderate (vs. low or high) overlap with the corporate investor.