• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.1-20
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• 2023

This study conducted an empirical analysis of whether the accelerator incubation program (mentoring, seed investment) and entrepreneur self-efficacy affect competitive advantage performance for start-up representatives who have experienced the accelerator incubation program. At this time, the mediating effect of innovation capability was also examined. As for sample collection, 334 samples collected from representatives of start-ups nurtured by national accelerators and regional centers for creative economy and innovation in Korea were tested using the Smart PLS 4.0 program, and the analysis results are as follows. First, mentoring has no significant effect on competitive advantage performance, whereas seed investment and entrepreneur self-efficacy have a positive (+) effect on competitive advantage performance. Second, mentoring, seed investment, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy have a positive (+) effect on innovation capability. Third, innovation capability has a positive (+) effect on competitive advantage performance. And fourth, it was confirmed that innovation competency has a positive (+) effect between mentoring, seed investment, entrepreneurship self-efficacy and competitive advantage, and has a mediating effect. As a result, while mentoring did not have a direct significant effect on competitive advantage performance, it was confirmed that there was a significant effect mediated by innovation capability. Seed investment, entrepreneur self-efficacy, and innovation capability directly helped competitive advantage performance, and it was confirmed that innovation capability has an effect on the competitive advantage performance as a mediating effect. It is expected that this study will be able to suggest a direction that can help start-ups improve their competitive advantage performance.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1-16
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• 2022

Although start-up is a key national strategy to increase national competitiveness and create employment, the survival rate of start-ups has not improved significantly. This is an important reason for the inability to provide timely and appropriate support to startups, which are in the early stages of start-up, due to the unique limitations of existing start-up support institutions and investors. The relatively recent accelerator is attracting attention as a subject of solving the above problems through professional incubation and investment. However, there are only a few empirical studies on investment determinants that affect the survival and success of accelerators, and there is a lack of theoretical evidence. Accordingly, in previous studies, 12 investment determinants were derived from a static, strategic, and dynamic perspective as accelerator investment determinants based on a business model innovation framework. This study subdivided the accelerator investment determinants derived through previous studies into 21 and analyzed the importance and priority of each factor using AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) analysis technique for domestic accelerator investment experts. As a result of the analysis, the top factors of importance of accelerator investment determinants were in the order of 'human resources', 'customer and market', 'intellectual resources', and 'entrepreneur's ability to realize opportunities'. It can be seen that the accelerator considers the core competencies of startups to implement solutions as the most important factor when making startup investment decisions. It was also confirmed that accelerators are strategic to create a clear value proposition and differentiated market position based on the core competitiveness of startups, and that the core value delivery method prefers a market-oriented business model and recognizes entrepreneurs's innovation capability is an important factor to realize a business model with limited resources in a rapidly changing market. This study is of academic significance in that it analyzes the importance and priority of accelerator investment determinants through demonstration as a follow-up study on accelerator investment determinants derived based on business model innovation theory that reflects the nature, goals, and major activities of accelerator investment. In addition, it is of practical value as it contributes to revitalizing the domestic startup investment ecosystem by providing accelerators with theoretical grounds for investment decisions and specific information on detailed investment determinants.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.99-109
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• 2015

The investment in healthcare industry has recently increased not only for global ventures but also for the domestic ventures. However, there has been hardship of founding and investment caused by healthcare startups characteristics that are costly and time consuming. In this study, the applicability of 'Lean Startup' theory to healthcare ventures was explored through the case of a domestic startup which accomplished funding from VC and KOSDAQ after establishing based on its technology in healthcare industry. There have been numerous case studies that applied 'Lean Startup' to IT industry. However, this case study that applied 'Lean Startup' to healthcare industry have some implications as follow: First, it is critical to conduct a hypothesis testing at initial research stage through R&D of 'MVP' (Minimum Viable Product) as the prototype testing is strictly prohibited in healthcare industry. Second, healthcare R&D teams ought to be well organized as startup teams and all researchers should be equipped with entrepreneurship as the licensing process in healthcare industry is time-consuming and costly due to issues like clinical studies. Lastly, management skills as smart and light as 'Lean Startup' are required in order to encourage young engineers' technology startups.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2020

In recent years, universities, with their intellectual properties and human resources, become main drivers for technology transfer. Universities in Korea have various organizations to support the technology transfer and commercialization. Among them, a technology holding company plays the critical role to successfully implement the task. Nonetheless, the performance of the technology holding company is well below the expectation of industry, government and universities themselves. The lack of expertises and experience together with the ill-suited government policies could be attributable to the observed under performance. More recently, however, the technology holding company acts as an accelerator or venture capital to search and fund promising start-ups. The university venture capital thus transforms a traditional university into an entrepreneurial university. Focusing on the role of the technology holding company as an accelerator or venture capital, the paper analyzes the characteristics of the university venture capital and the invested start-ups. The performance of the university venture capital is measured and the determinants of the performance are empirically tested. The results show that the co-investment of outside investors and the support of government program, known as Tech Incubator Program for Startup Korea, yields the highest performance. The result indicates that the coordination of the university venture capital, industry and government is the key to the success of early start-ups. The paper is the first to analyze the performance of the university venture capitals in Korea and thus contributes to the literature.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.147-157
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• 2023

This paper investigates the financial factors affecting angel investors' investment decisions for 818 firms from 2009 to 2018 in the Korean venture investment market. We construct a quasi-experimental design using propensity scoring matching and compare the investment determinants between investment firms and matching firms. The main empirical findings are as follows. First, we find that angel investors are more likely to choose firms based on a firm's growth such as profit and assets rather than profitability or financial stability. In addition, we identify that they prefer the firm not only higher intangible assets but also higher R&D expenditures. Second, we find that angel investors consider both growth and activity ratios in the firms for over three years and have entered the mid-stage of startups. Overall, we confirm that the investment decision of angel investors mainly focuses on the venture startups' growth trend or future growth potential rather than the realized profitability or financial stability. We also infer that the possibility of performance creation is an important investment factor along with growth for the mid-stage startup.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.45-61
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• 2023

The start-up rate is increasing due to the government's start-up support policy, but it is true that the continuous survival rate and growth rate of companies are lower than that of the start-up rate. As part of increasing the survival and growth rate of startups, the importance of start-up mentoring has been highlighted, and companies selected for the Government's startup support project are increasingly having mentoring opportunities for corporate growth. In order to determine the relationship between start-up mentoring and entrepreneurial alertness as a way to generate management performance, this study examined how start-up mentoring affects entrepreneurial alertness and management performance. In addition, the government's support project was divided into companies with less than three years of start-up and companies with more than three years of experience, which are the criteria for early and leap companies, and analyzed whether each group has a moderating effect. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the mentoring problem-solving function had a significant effect on the ability to evaluate entrepreneurial alertness, and the motivation function of mentoring had a significant effect on all factors of entrepreneurial alertness. In addition, although mentoring functions did not have a moderating effect on entrepreneurial alertness depending on the work history between companies less than 3 years and companies for more than 3 years, there was a difference in factors affecting entrepreneurial alertness between groups with low and high work history. The implications of this study can contribute to the advancement of start-up mentoring programs by studying the impact of mentoring factors on entrepreneurial alertness when providing mentoring to start-up companies selected for the government's start-up support project.

• 한국벤처창업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2020.06a
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• pp.113-121
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• 2020

최근 정부가 창업기업에게 3년간 공공금융기관 등을 통해 약 100조원 투입하였으며, 금융위원회가 신용보증기관과 산업은행 등 정책금융 등의 많은 창업지원 자금을 통해 약 35조원을 지원하는 등 최근 3년간(2015년~2018년) 창업기업에 약 100조원 이상을 지원하였다. 실제로 중소기업청의 지원예산 중 스타트업 지원 비중은 85%에 달한 반면 스케일업(성장·성숙기)지원은 15%에 불과하다. 그러나 국내 창업기업의 생존율은 선진국에 비해 턱없이 낮은 것으로 조사되었다. 창업 후 3년간 생존율은 39.1%로 10곳 중 4곳 정도만 살아남는 것으로 조사되었고, 5년간 살아남을 확률은 27.5% 10곳 중 3곳 정도만 살아남는다. 반면 해외 창업기업들은 5년간 창업기업 생존율은 우리나라의 2배에 달한다. 이에 따라 본 연구는 최근 정부의 적극적인 지원이 이루어지고 있는 초기창업자에 대한 연구의 필요성과 함께 창업동기와 창업준비가 사업계속의도에 미치는 영향관계에서 창업만족도의 매개역할에 관한 영향을 실증적으로 분석하고 살펴보고자 한다. 또한, 초기창업자의 창업동기와 창업준비에 기초하여 창업을 한 후에 창업에 대한 만족도를 높일 수 있는 방법보다는 창업 전 부터 사전 준비의 필요성을 고찰하고자 한다. 이러한 관점에서 실무적 시사점을 도출하고, 초기창업자들의 창업만족도를 높이고 계속 가능한 창업수행을 할 수 있도록 유용한 정책적 시사점을 제시하고자 한다.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.366-376
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• 2019

Youth unemployment reached a record high in 2017, and business revitalization is emerging as a means of overcoming this situation. The number of venture companies and amounts of new venture investments are increasing year on year, and the government has upgraded Small and Medium Business Administration to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. However, the success rate of startups is relatively poor. Over the past three years only 39.1% of Korean startups survived and 90% of companies failed in the Valley of Death phase. Survival this phase is critical for early startups, and thus, the amount and timing of investments are critical. Current models for establishing business startups do not effectively attract investments because they lack practical, corporate evaluation variables. In this paper, we develop a mixed process that incorporates the factors and business models focused on by venture capital investors. In addition, we compared our Death Valley Venture (DVV) process with current methods and provide an example of its application.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.109-121
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• 2023

This paper examines whether angel investors affect startup's financial performance (profitability and growth ratios) in the Korean startup market over 10 years period from 2009 to 2018. In particular, we consider not only the behavior of angel investor such as the investment amount or the type of investments (stocks, bonds) but also the type of angle investor (individual or corporation). Our empirical results are as follows. First, we find that the startup's profitability ratios are higher after the investment of angel investors. However, the growth ratios show different results in assets and sales. Second, we identify that the investment amount of angel investors negatively affects on the startup's growth ratios. Lastly, we find that equity investment such as common stock or preferred stock and the individual angel investors such as personal investment association or professional angels show higher financial performance than bond investment or corporate angel investors. Overall, our findings imply that angel investors positively affect startup's financial performance. In particular, we infer that the superior financial performance is largely attributed to monitor startups by participating as shareholders or to select more carefully by the individual angel investors who may be exposed to more investment risk. In conclusion, our findings support that angel investors play a positive role in the Korean venture investment market.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.65-80
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• 2022

Despite the uncertainty and risky factors of startups, the special and critical role of accelerators in carrying out professional nurturing and investment for them is becoming increasingly significant in the startup social-system. However, academic research on investment determinants that have a profound impact on the survival of accelerators is lacking, and there are only a few empirical studies on the classification and importance of factors, and they do not enjoy the benefits of theoretical studies. This study proposes a business model innovation framework based on the business model innovation theory that reflects the nature and properties of startups that are investment targets of accelerators and derives 12 investment decision factors. The framework defines that the target, direction, and performable force of startup innovation are a business model, strategy, and dynamic capability. Besides, the framework analyzes the investment decision factors of the existing accelerators based on the business model innovation framework to verify the suitability and sufficiency of the composition. As a result of the analysis, first, most of the items were faithfully composed from a static point of view of business model innovation, but it was found that the factors related to the core activities to evaluate the activity and customer relationship were insufficient. Second, from the strategic point of view, the necessity of developing factors that can encompass the definition and content of core resources, which are internal strategic factors, was raised. Third, from the dynamic point of view, it was found that many of the investment determinants of accelerators were concentrated on the lower level of dynamic competencies. This can be judged as a result of reflecting the characteristics of a startup that needs to develop a solution with few resources and a small number of team members. In addition, the roles and interrelationships between each factor are not clear, thus it was found as a limiting point for startups to view and evaluate the direction and process in which startups dynamically innovate their business models. This study is considerably differentiated in that it provides a business model innovation framework and offers a theoretical basis for investment determinants by deriving the investment determinants of accelerators based on the framework and design the foundation for subsequent research. The business model innovation framework presented in this study has great implications in that it contributes to the achievement of startups, accelerators, and startup support organizations.