Abstract: Using funding size per round and inter-round duration to measure stage financing, we study how venture capital stage financing affect corporate’s R&D investment with the data of firms listed on Chi-Next and SME Board Market. The conclusions are as follows: first, funding size per round and inter-round duration are both significantly positively correlated with R&D intensity. Second, after subdividing the samples we find for different investment stages the influence of stage financing on R&D intensity is different. For early stage investment funding size per round is significantly positively correlated with R&D intensity and inter-round duration is significantly negatively correlated with R&D intensity while for late stage investment funding size per round is positively correlated with R&D intensity but not significantly and inter-round duration is significantly positively correlated with R&D intensity. The results indicate that by stage financing venture capital not only alleviate financial constraints of corporate’s R&D activities but adjust inter-round duration to adjust monitoring intensity based on characteristics of different investment stages in order to facilitate corporate ‘s innovation investment.

Key words: R&, D intensity