What goes around comes around? Unravelling capital exchange in corporate venturing

For corporate ventures, access to different types of capital from their parent company is important to the survival and growth. At the same time, obtaining resources – typically money – from the venture is one of the reasons for venturing. Yet, how such capitals are exchanged between the two actors remains unclear. By drawing on multiple case studies, this paper investigates the resource exchange relationship between the parent company and the venture. We contribute to the literature on corporate venturing by highlighting the bi-directionality of the flows of capital and the variety of capitals exchanged in corporate venturing initiatives – particularly underlining the role of symbolic capital. Moreover, we isolate four mechanisms of capital exchange in corporate venturing – transfer, conversion, sharing and spillover – and discuss their effect on the actors’ capital endowment.