A Study on the Impact of Venture Capital Investment on Startup Performance in Daegu: Focusing on Growth and Innovation

This study empirically examines the impact of venture capital (VC) investment on the performance of early-stage startups in the Daegu region, focusing on two core dimensions: growth and innovation.To address the issue of selection bias, which arises as venture capitalists tend to invest in firms with inherently high potential, we control for key firm characteristics such as industry type, firm size, government support, and export status.The analysis is based on a sample of 208 startups established within seven years, and binary logistic regression is employed to estimate the likelihood of achieving high performance.The results show that VC-backed startups are significantly more likely to achieve strong sales growth and innovative outcomes, including higher levels of R&D intensity, patent activity, and the establishment of formal R&D organizations.Odds ratios for innovation-related indicators ranged from 2.0 to 2.5, suggesting a robust effect of VC support on innovation capabilities.However, no significant impact was observed on employment growth, implying that VC investment emphasizes scalable, innovation-driven growth rather than workforce expansion.All regression models exhibit solid explanatory power (Nagelkerke R = 0.167-0.342),and the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodnessof-fit tests indicate satisfactory model fit.These findings demonstrate that venture capital plays a critical role in enhancing both growth and innovation performance, especially within regional entrepreneurial ecosystems.The study offers empirical evidence of how VC contributes not only as a funding source but as a strategic enabler of innovation and scale-up potential in regional startup markets.