Venture Capital Financing of U.S., UK, German and French IT Start-ups

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3. Date of Disputation: 14.03.2011

4. University of Kassel, Business Economics Faculty

5. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Kassel, Business Economics Faculty for the degree of Dr. rer. pol. (rerum politicarum)

Acknowledgement

I hereby first and foremost express great gratitude to my primary academic supervisor Prof. Dr. Klaus Nathusius for all the academic consultation and structural support from April 2008 to March 2011. He was available in-person for discussions and most importantly always promptly responded to e-mails within three days. The completion of the written doctoral dissertation in two years was only possible because of Prof. Nathusius` fast reaction to e-mails. In addition, I commend Prof. Nathusius for organizing the quarterly colloquium where all doctoral candidates gave presentations on the status of their research work. The colloquium was always useful to attend and very effectual to the progress of my doctoral dissertation. I really enjoyed exchanging ideas with other doctoral candidates there.

I appreciate Prof. Dr. Rainer Stöttner for taking over the role of secondary academic supervisor. I owe Jutta Salzmann, Alexander Kampe and Martina Tisafalvi a lot for providing a seamless, impeccable and timely administrative support over the three years.

I am highly indebted to the following libraries for granting me a full free access to literature resources: Penrose Library, DU Denver; Perry-Castaneda Library, UT Austin; Boatwright Library, University of Richmond; Jackson Library, Stanford University; University Library, University of Cologne. I am obliged to the following venture capital associations for providing me a full free access to their publication database: John Taylor from National Ventura Capital Association (NVCA), Scott Sage from British Venture Capital Association (BVCA), Ewa Ly from Association Française des Investisseurs en Capital (AFIC), Attila Dahmen from Bundesverband Deutscher Kapitalbeteiligungsgesellschaften (BVKAP) and Dan Magirescu from European Venture Capital Association (EVCA).

I am very grateful to all the venture capital firms in the U.S., UK, Germany and France that partook in the scientific online survey in early 2009. Moreover, I am sincerely beholden to the 24 venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, London, Paris, Hamburg, Munich and Berlin that participated in the face-to-face 30 minutes expert interviews, which were instrumental in designing the underlying research framework model of the doctoral dissertation.

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