Beyond venture capital: an exploratory study of the finance-innovation-policy nexus in cleantech

Abstract

In recent years, scholarly interest in financing for innovation has grown, particularly for mitigating cli-mate change. However, extant literature has neglected the interaction of actors along the equity financing value chain, and the indirect effects of innovation and financial policy on the supply and de-mand of private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC). In this article, we emphasize the importance of these understudied aspects through a comparative case study of equity finance for cleantech in the United States and Germany. We find that systemic interdependencies between institutional investors, VC/PE and policy makers influence the conditions for innovation—the " finance-innovation-policy nexus. " Adverse effects of policies affecting financial markets, in particular institutional investors, have to be taken into account to effectively mobilize private investments for (cleantech) innovation.