Mechanisms Through Which Government-Guided Venture Capital Funds and High-Value Public Data Jointly Drive Digital Industrial Cluster Development

Digital industrial cluster development increasingly depends on the coordinated allocation of capital, data, technology, and innovation resources. This study examines whether and how government-guided venture capital funds and the openness and utilization of high-value public data jointly promote digital industrial cluster development. Using a balanced panel of 285 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2014 to 2023, we estimated two-way fixed-effects models and conducted mechanism, moderation, heterogeneity, robustness, and endogeneity analyses. The results revealed significant complementarity between government-guided venture capital funds and high-value public data in promoting digital industrial cluster development, and this finding remained robust to alternative specifications, measurements, and endogeneity treatments. Dimension-specific analysis showed that the effect is concentrated mainly in the contribution and support dimensions. Innovation factor agglomeration and enhanced collaborative innovation both partially mediated the effect, with the former playing a larger role. Economic development and population density strengthened the effect of capital–data synergy, whereas government intervention weakened it. Further heterogeneity analysis showed that the synergy effect is stronger in southern cities and becomes more pronounced over the sample period, while its marginal contribution declines as pre-existing regional innovation capacity increases. These findings extend research on policy complementarity and coordinated factor allocation and provide empirical evidence for designing differentiated capital–data policies to support sustainable digital industrial cluster development.