Acquisitions and their effect on start-up innovation: Stifling or scaling?

Marius Berger, Sara Calligaris, Andrea Greppi and Dmitri Kirpichev

No 2025/10, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: This paper highlights a critical issue in the innovation ecosystem ‒ whether acquisitions of start-ups by incumbent firms foster or stifle innovation. Using a unique firm-level dataset covering 60 countries for the period 2001-2021, the study finds that acquisition targets are highly innovative before the deal, and acquirors are generally innovation-oriented firms. Acquired start-ups are also technologically close to their acquirors and often share the same industries and countries, suggesting potential market synergies. However, post-acquisition, start-up patenting declines without a corresponding increase in the acquiror's innovation activity, raising concerns that such deals may serve anti-competitive purposes rather than enhancing innovation.

Keywords: Acquisitions; Innovation; Start Ups (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 L26 O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-06-25
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:stiaaa:2025/10-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().