1 WHAT MAKES A “GAZELLE ” IN HIGH-TECH SECTORS? A STUDY ON FOUNDERS ’ HUMAN CAPITAL AND ACCESS TO EXTERNAL FINANCING*

Nowadays, new technology-based firms (NTBFs) play a key role in modern economies in terms of the efficiency of the economic system. They can somehow discipline the behavior of incumbent firms, thus assuring allocative efficiency, and they may challenge existing technological paradigms dominated by established industry leaders, open up new industry segments, and promote dynamic efficiency (Audretsch 1995). We apply econometric techniques in order to analyze the effects on NTBFs ’ growth of founders ’ human capital and firms ’ access to external private equity financing while taking into account the allegedly endogenous nature of this latter variable. We also distinguish between the different effects exerted on firms ’ growth of private equity financing provided by venture capitalists (VCs) and corporate venture capitalists (CVCs). The econometric estimates allow us to gain some new interesting insights on the largely investigated relationship between founders ’ human capital and NTBFs ’ growth distinguishing between variables that have a direct effect on NTBFs ’ performances and/or those that exert an indirect role since facilitate firms in accessing external private equity financing. Moreover, they highlight that a process of self selection out of the capital market or an inefficient screening procedure by investors characterizes to some extent the NTBF sector. In fact, key factors of new firms ’ success in high-tech industries (e.g. founders ’ technical industry-specific work experience) do not drive private equity investments ’ allocation, while oppositely, determinants of access to external sources of financing (e.g. founders ’ managerial experience) do not have any direct impact on new firms ’ performances. This suggests tha