Venture Capital Research: An In-Depth-Cluster Analysis

This exploratory bibliometric study reviews and classifies the existing state of venture capital research. By conducting a co-citation analysis with a sample of 1,410 papers, we complement existing qualitative and quantitative studies while visually uncovering the intellectual structure of venture capital research. We identify three broad research areas (venture capital life cycle, interfirm relationships and knowledge exchange as well as economic and policy perspectives) that also reveal the evolution of the research field. These research areas are composed of 13 thematic clusters. In addition, we introduce the idea of connecting and methodology papers: we explore thematic linkages between the respective clusters as these connecting papers bring together research topics from at least two different fields of research. We highlight the most important articles, show how clusters interact with each other and finally identify potential future research directions.