Does Venture Capital investmentreally require spatial proximity?An empirical investigation

We examine the role of spatial proximity for Venture Capital (VC) investments inGermany. The main database is a survey of 85 personal interviews withrepresentatives of different types of financial institutions. The analysis shows thatspatial proximity is far less important for VC investments than is often believed.For example, the results indicate that syndication is partly used as an alternative tospatial proximity. Telecommunication does not work as a substitute for face-tofacecontact. On the whole, regional proximity is not a dominant factor in VCpartnerships. Therefore, the absence of VC firms in a region does not appear tocause a severe regional equity gap...