 Media coverage of startups and venture capital investmentsXiangyi Zhou, Fang Zheng and Sheng Xiao Emerging Markets Review, 2025, vol. 68, issue C Abstract: Using a large sample of over 5000 startups across various industries and 524 media outlets in China between 2000 and 2016, we examine the effects of media coverage of startups on Venture Capital (VC) investment decisions and performance. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time in finance literature, we have discovered that media coverage of startups significantly affects VC investment decisions and exit performance. Specifically, such coverage, especially positive coverage, significantly increases the probability and amount of VC investments in startups. It also significantly improves the exit performance of VC investments. The significant effects of media coverage of startups on VC investments are caused by market-oriented instead of state-controlled media. We further find that VC investments in a focal startup are significantly influenced by the average media coverage of other startups in the same industry or the same city. Our results are robust to a battery of robustness tests. Keywords: Venture capital; Media; Exit performance; Peer effects (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ememar:v:68:y:2025:i:c:s1566014125000755 DOI: 10.1016/j.ememar.2025.101326 Access Statistics for this article Emerging Markets Review is currently edited by Jonathan A. Batten More articles in Emerging Markets Review from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.