The invention and diffusion of venture capital: when knowledge married capital

Firm formation based on new technology became a systematic process with the invention of venture capital. In the chapter we shall outline the development of a university-based start-up strategy for regional development in response, prior to the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 that legitmized this strategy and prepared the way for its spread to a broader range of academic institutions. Rather than taking the U.S. Act or its analogues in other countries, as the inception of the processs of university soruced economic development, we view it as its culmination.