The Venture Capital industry has gained widespread attention from policymakers, investors, and entrepreneurs worldwide due to its success history in developed markets, particularly in the United States. How ever, its implementation in developing countries faces challenges that drive investors to adapt, particularly in the earliest and riskiest stages. In these segments, other investors, such as Angels, Accelerators, and Corporate Venture Capital (CVC), make the environment more competitive, providing more options to entrepreneurs seeking capital. Nevertheless, the literature still fails to address the effects these investors of different profiles have on their invested startups. The finance escalator paradigm, implying that IVCs only act in advanced stages, is still present, but this has been changing in the last decade in the US and more recently in Brazil. In this thesis, we examine the effects of different investors on early-stage startups in the US and Brazil through three related research articles. In the first article, we conduct a systematic review of the CVC literature from 2005 to 2019, identifying driving mechanisms and effects on invested ventures. This provides a broader understanding of the multiple factors influencing the relationship between investors and ventures, the differences in profiles and incentives of distinct types of VC investors, and how they influence ventures. This article also reveals trends and gaps in the literature that guide the following articles. In the second article, we investigate the comparative and joint effects of the main VC investor types (IVC, CVC, Angel Group, and Accelerator) on 13,098 early-stage ventures that received their first investment round in the US from 2005 to 2016. The results show that early-stage ventures backed by IVCs achieved better results than their peers in all early-stage goals, contradicting the milestone effect expected from investors like Angel Groups and Accelerators and raising questions on the validity of some aspects of the finance escalator paradigm. In the third article, we focus on outcomes for 1,937 early-stage ventures that received their first investment round in Brazil between 2000 and September 2022. We examine ventures backed by IVCs, CVCs, Angels, and Accelerators, and the results indicate significant differences from the US. In Brazil, IVCs have not shown a pervasive presence as in the US, and the expected positive performance was only true for ventures backed by highly experienced IVCs. Additionally, Angels revealed the best performance for specific early-stage goals. Overall, our analysis of the two markets demonstrates significant differences in the effects VC investors have on the performance of early-stage ventures. The IVC model investor demonstrates superiority over its peers in the American market, while in Brazil, other investors also stand out, especially Angels. These differences may be due to factors in the local economic environment, shaping investors profiles and influencing the way they operate in the country.