Journal of Corporate Finance Vol. 68 2021
Money chasing hot industries? Investor attention and valuation of venture capital backed firms
Abstract
This study analyzes how investor attention to industries affects firm valuations in the venture capital market. Relying on aggregate search frequency in Baidu, we construct a direct measure of investor attention to industries (ASVI). Our results show that an increase in ASVI predicts higher firm valuations. We prove that the price increase is an attention-induced result rather than an information-based fundamental premium, which is due to the evidence of a long-run reversal of firm valuations and worse performance of VC investments. Our findings continue to hold across a wide range of robustness checks, including sample selection, endogeneity, alternative measures of ASVI. We also find that syndicated investments and involvement of experienced venture capitalists attenuate the effect of ASVI on firm valuations, further supporting the attention-induced view.
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2021.101949
- Volume
- 68
- Pages
- 101949
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref