Social Media Coverage and Venture Capital Investments in Nigeria

Abstract

Technological advancement is an open door to the ease, rapidness and profitability of human operations, by which the business sector has benefited a lot. On this premise, this study investigated the relationship between social media coverage (SMC) and venture capital (VC) investments in Nigeria (2015 - 2022). Social Connectedness Index (SCI) was used as proxy to SMC while startup funds in fintech and VC performance were used as measures of VC investments. Multiple sources of data were used which include: Statista, Global Social Media Statistics, etc. And with the aid of Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood estimator, it is found that social media coverage negatively but significantly influences VC investments. This implies that use of social media coverage to initiate awareness greatly determine the investment decisions of VC firms. Reasons for the negative relationship could be attributed to some of the challenges that are associated with startups such as fear of survival amidst highly established competitors, unstable economic situation, and insecurity which were common in the terrain of Nigeria within the period of study. Economic instability manifested in high exchange rate disparity, hyper-inflation, high cost of production and high tax-burden, which have been the trend in Nigeria. More so, the social challenge of kidnapping, and boko-haram insurgencies, are enough to masquerade any potential venture capitalists in spite of the connectivity and awareness of the creativity and entrepreneurship created on the social media platforms. Howbeit, the presence of strong relationship between social media coverage and venture capital investments in the study, suggests that the concerned stakeholders should create and sustain a conducive ambience that would guarantee economic stability and peaceful operations of startups’ enterprises.