The formation process of a financial innovation: venture capital: a comparative analysis of the American and French models.

Summary Venture capital is a financial innovation. It constitutes a world of financing for innovative smes that reduces the crowding out effect that these companies are subject to both in terms of bank financing and capital markets. After an analytical review of the theories of financial innovation and a decomposition of the production process of the capital industry, the thesis proposes an analysis of its formation. This analysis is based on a grid that articulates the two dominant (and complementary) schemas of the theories of financial innovation: the theory of "financial innovation induced by the demand for new characteristics of agents" and "financial innovation induced by institutional constraints". These schemes allow, respectively, to highlight the new productive function of smes (and the resulting needs) and the action of institutions (public institutions, large firms and banks) as the main determinants of "venture capital" innovation. The relevance of these relationships is then tested on two models of venture capital formation: it appears that the American model, the matrix of venture capital, is specified by an induction by the demand for characteristics according to a logic of private innovation, while the French model is specified by an induction by the constraints of institutions according to a logic of public innovation.