Yehui Tong

School of Accounting,

Nanjing University of Finance and Economics,

China

tongyyhh@163.com

ORCID 0000-0002-7805-9470

The determinants of capital structure: Evidence from the high-tech and low-tech Spanish start-ups between the non-crisis and crisis periods

Ramon Saladrigues

Faculty of Law, Economics and Tourism,

University of LLeida,

Spain

ramon.saladrigues@udl.cat

ORCID 0000-0003-3987-2511

Abstract. This study explores the changes of capital structure (the proportion of external debt) of start-ups and the influential factors respectively for high-tech and low-tech start-ups in Spain with considering the impacts of intellectual capital elements. In particular, the start-ups founded from 2008 to 2022 are analyzed with separating the crisis years and non-crisis years in accordance with the macro-economic environment. The observations show a decreasing trend of the average leverage since the 2008 global financial crisis especially for low-tech start-ups, which demonstrates the discreetness regarding external debt finance for start-ups. The results also confirm that the importance of financial factors outweighs that of intellectual capital factors. Specifically, the significant impacts of profitability and size (based on assets) are observed in nearly all the regressions in both the crisis and non-crisis periods, whereas the negative effects of intellectual capital on leverage are mainly shown in structural capital during the non-crisis period. Therefore, the findings manifest the negative signaling effect on obtaining external debt finance when investing largely in intellectual capital. This paper enriches the related empirical research regarding start-up capital structure through considering technology features for a long period covering the two important crises in the 21st century. 

Received: December, 2024

1st Revision: August, 2025

Accepted: December, 2025

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2025/18-4/2

JEL Classification: G30, L26, O34

Keywords: capital structure, high-tech and low-tech start-ups, crisis and non-crisis years, financial factors, intellectual capital factors