Spatial myopia, financial hubs and the “Golden Triangle”: Tracing the uneven landscape of exogenous equity investments in the UK

The entrepreneurial finance literature has hitherto largely neglected the role of non-indigenous equity finance across different territorial jurisdictions. Invoking the concept of spatial myopia, this paper examines the role played by this specialist form of finance within different locations and how a firm’s relative geographic location within a national economy plays a fundamental determinant shaping their ability to obtain this form of specialist equity funding. In particular, this study explores the spatial dynamics of international equity investments, with a specific focus on the UK’s six major financial EE hubs. By integrating firm-level data from Crunchbase with city-level economic indicators, the analysis employs a multilevel mixed-effects probit regression model to assess the probability of firms attracting international investors. Our findings reveal that the famous "Golden Triangle" of London, Cambridge, and Oxford remain dominant in terms of attracting international equity investments. Spatial myopia significantly influences investment patterns, with increased distance from the Golden Triangle correlating with reduced probabilities of securing international equity finance. However, no distinct advantages are observable for early and late-stage ventures within the triumvirate compared to the other financial hubs. We conclude that overcoming myopic decision making in international equity investors is a non-trivial policy objective to address.