The impact of venture capital on Chinese SMEs’ sustainable development: a focus on early-stage and professional characteristics

Abstract

Abstract Venture capital is an essential financing option for small and medium-sized enterprises, especially high-tech enterprises. The sustainable development of enterprises is of great significance for promoting the high-quality growth of the economy. In this paper, Chinese-listed companies supported by venture capital from 2002 to 2022 are taken as the research sample. Semiparametric and nonparametric methods are adopted to explore the long-term impact of venture capital on the sustainable development of Chinese enterprises. It is found that the early stage of venture capital companies has a significant promoting effect on the sustainable development of the enterprises. In contrast, professionalism has no significant impact on the sustainable development of enterprises in the short term but has an inhibitory effect in the long term. The results show that venture capital is conducive to enterprises’ standardization and long-term development because it provides funds, supervision, and other noncapital value-added services, such as networking resources, management experience, and market information. Venture capital should refrain from interfering excessively in decision-making in professional and technical fields. This paper addresses the need to research venture capital’s impact on enterprises’ sustainable development. It provides a specific reference for formulating venture capital contracts and related policy recommendations.