The literature on Venture Capital (VC) has produced a rich and diverse range of studies investigating both theoretical and empirical aspects of VC funding. We navigate this vast literature through a practitioner review, placing special emphasis on three topical areas: 1) Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and sustainability; 2) Innovation; and 3) Exit Strategies. Our aim is to provide an updated overview of the main contributions, identify the gaps and offer guidance for future investigations. We selected 1,264 papers for review, sourced from five major database libraries published between 2010 and 2022 through a NPL toolkit including the keywords related to VC financing. Although not encompassing the whole scientific production on VC, the sample provides a sufficiently com-prehensive overview of the main findings on VC financing in the three topic areas. Findings are summarized through tables and figures and show a substantial volume of papers focusing on VC, with an increase over time. A major highlight of this study is that most of the studies employ traditional methods and are mainly focused on the US and Chinese markets. Therefore, despite the extensive literature, there seems to be a research gap in the area of emerging markets. The review confirms that innovation is essential for VC performance and its funding plays a crucial role. Evidence is used in the paper to suggest how both researchers and practitioners can bridge these findings in future research to make more informed investment and commercialization decisions.
Ozturkkal et al. (Wed,) studied this question.