Bootstrap financing refers to measures that entrepreneurial ventures undertake to preserve liquidity (e.g., reducing expenses, collecting receivables, delaying payments, preselling). Prior research shows that bootstrap financing is an important enabler for the growth of resource-constrained...

We assess the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on venture capital (VC) investments. Using a dataset of 39,527 funding rounds that occurred before and during the pandemic in 130 coun-tries, we document a significant decline in VC investments. In line with our theoretical consid-erations, we show...

Hidden champions are market leaders in niche markets and are an important part of the German Mittelstand. Although the hidden champion phenomenon has received considerable interest in practice, few academic studies on this issue exist. We especially lack evidence on the financial performance of...