"Charting Venture Capital in American Enterprise: The Development, Diffusion, and Impact of the Casey Life Cycle Model"

This project contributes an account of a key moment in the development of venture capital. Based on archival research, I argue that the Small Business Administration’s Task Force on Venture and Equity Capital for Small Business, established in 1976 and headed by William J. Casey, had an outsized impact on the development of modern venture capital and its close associations with the high technology sector. The Task Force’s 1977 report, known as the Casey Report, was influential in establishing both the figure of the venture capitalist and the business model of institutionally supported, limited partnership venture capital in the minds of policymakers, business people, and the general public. This was achieved through a well crafted policy agenda and widespread citation of the Report in newspapers, professional publications, and in government hearings. This paper focuses on one part of the Report: a prominently featured schematic model, entitled “Life Cycle of a New Enterprise: Model of a Growing and Successful Company, 1975-1976 Financial Market Conditions.” This model illustrated the Task Force’s then-novel proposed venture capital form in action. In the years following the publication of the Report, the Model would become a referential touchstone in several areas of policy and thought. Multiple federal agencies would claim the model as their own work product or be mistakenly credited for it by others. This paper traces the diffusion and influence of the Model as it spread through the developing high technology sector, as shown by its appearances in business publications, governmental reports, and congressional testimonies offered by industry leaders. The Model was genericized away from its original authors and intentions, becoming part of the “economic imaginary” of the technology and innovation sector.