Venture Capital's Influence on Startup Media Coverage

We find that venture capital (VC) investment is related to a significant increase in media coverage of the portfolio companies. Exploiting a staggered differences-in-differences design, we document a link between VC investment and increase in media coverage post VC investment, both in quantity and reach. The increase is mainly driven by positive articles; we find a significant decrease in negative articles. Portfolio companies classified as expansion stage, companies with business customers, and companies invested by VC firms with higher past returns especially see an increase in media coverage. Our tests reveal that both VC monitoring and VC reputation/network could be the mechanisms behind the increase in media articles. Taken together, our analyses highlight the impact VC investors bring to their investments leveraging the media