We examine the challenge entrepreneurial companies face in going beyond the start-up phase and growing into large successful companies. We examine the long-term financing of these so-called scale-up companies, focusing on the United States, Europe and Canada. We first provide a conceptual...

Start-up growth is often treated as a stylised fact, despite an extensive research body composed of divergent theories and empirical findings. Against this background, this work contributes to the literature by analysing a hand-collected dataset of 2,951 EIF-backed VC start-ups. Section 2...

Innovative startups are frequently acquired by large incumbent firms. On the one hand, these acquisitions provide an incentive for startup creation and may transfer ideas to more efficient users. On the other hand, incumbents might acquire startups just to "kill" their ideas, and acquisitions...