Venture Capitalists and COVID-19

32 Pages Posted: 23 Sep 2020

See all articles by Paul A. Gompers

Paul A. Gompers

Harvard Business School - Finance Unit; Harvard University - Entrepreneurial Management Unit; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Will Gornall

University of British Columbia (UBC) - Sauder School of Business

Steven N. Kaplan

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); University of Chicago - Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship

Ilya A. Strebulaev

Stanford University - Graduate School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: September 21, 2020

Abstract

We survey over 1,000 institutional and corporate venture capitalists (VCs) at more than 900 different firms to learn how their decisions and investments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We compare their survey answers to those provided by a large sample of VCs in early 2016 and analyzed in Gompers, Gornall, Kaplan, and Strebulaev (2020). VCs have slowed their investment pace (71% of normal) and expect to invest at 81% of their normal pace over the coming year. Not surprisingly, they have devoted more time to guiding the portfolio companies through the pandemic. VCs report that 52% of their portfolio companies are positively affected or unaffected by the pandemic; 38% are negatively affected; and 10% are severely negatively affected. Overall, they expect the pandemic to have a small negative effect on their fund IRRs (-1.6%) and MOICs (-0.07). Surprisingly, we find little change in the allocation of their time to helping portfolio companies relative to looking for new investments. In general, we find only modest differences between institutional and corporate VCs.

JEL Classification: G24,G30,G31,L26

Suggested Citation

Gompers, Paul A. and Gornall, Will and Kaplan, Steven Neil and Strebulaev, Ilya A., Venture Capitalists and COVID-19 (September 21, 2020). University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper No. 2020-135, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3698128 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3698128

Paul A. Gompers

Harvard Business School - Finance Unit ( email )

Boston, MA 02163
United States
617-495-6297 (Phone)
617-496-8443 (Fax)

Harvard University - Entrepreneurial Management Unit ( email )

Cambridge, MA 02163
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
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1000 Brussels
Belgium

HOME PAGE: http://www.ecgi.org

Will Gornall

University of British Columbia (UBC) - Sauder School of Business ( email )

2053 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://willgornall.com

Steven Neil Kaplan (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business ( email )

5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-4513 (Phone)
773-702-0458 (Fax)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

University of Chicago - Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship

Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Ilya A. Strebulaev

Stanford University - Graduate School of Business ( email )

655 Knight Way
Stanford, CA 94305-5015
United States

HOME PAGE: http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/strebulaev/

National Bureau of Economic Research ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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