The Ownership Background of Venture Capital and IPO Underpricing Rate

This paper takes listed companies with venture capital backgrounds in China’s SMEs, GEM from 2014–2019 and STAR from 2019–2020 April, divides venture capital ownership backgrounds, and adopts cross-sectional multiple regressions to explore the impact of venture capital ownership backgrounds on the IPO price suppression rate of invested firms and its mechanism of action. It is found that joint investment by venture capitalists with different ownership backgrounds can reduce the IPO price suppression rate of enterprises, and venture capitalists with Sino-foreign joint venture backgrounds have a positive effect on the IPO price suppression rate of enterprises. It is confirmed that joint investment can effectively reduce the IPO price suppression rate of enterprises by forming social networks and mobilizing resources to enhance enterprise value. The above-mentioned effects are significantly stronger in the STAR sample, indicating that the pilot registration system, with its multiple rounds of inquiries and public responses, effectively conveys information to the market, allowing investors to form more rational judgments, and has a more significant effect on reducing the IPO price suppression rate. Sino-foreign joint venture capital has a stronger positive effect on the IPO price suppression rate due to its high reputation, which attracts investors more significantly. The positive impact on the IPO price suppression rate is stronger.