into economic goods". This may result in new organizations or may be part of revitalizing mature organizations in response to a perceived opportunity. American entrepreneurs are even engaged in public services delivery through public-private partnerships. The most obvious form of entrepreneurship refers to the process and engagement of starting new businesses (referred to as startup companies); however, in recent years, the term has been extended to include social and political forms of entrepreneurial activity. When entrepreneurship is describing activities within a firm or large organization it is referred to as intra-preneurship and may include corporate venturing, when large entities spin-off organizations. According to Paul Reynolds, entrepreneurship scholar and creator of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, "by the time they reach their retirement years, half of all working men in the United States probably have a period of self-employment of one or more years; one in four may have engaged in self-employment for six or more years. Participating in a new business creation is a common activity among U.S. workers over the course of their careers." And in recent years, business creation has been documented by scholars such as David Audretsch to be a major driver of economic growth in both the United States and Western Europe. Venture capital investment Venture capital, as an industry, originated in the United States, which it still dominates. According to the National Venture Capital Association 11% of private sector jobs come from venture capital backed companies and venture capital backed revenue accounts for 21% of U.S. GDP. Total U.S. investment in venture capital amounted to $48.3billion in 2014, for 4,356 deals. This represented "an increase of 61% in dollars and a 4% increase in deals over the prior year", reported the National Venture Capital Association. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that venture capital investment in the United States had fully recovered by 2014 to pre-recession levels. The National Venture Capital Association has reported that, in 2014, venture capital investment in the life sciences was at its highest level since 2008: in biotechnology, $6.0billion was invested in 470 deals and, in life sciences overall, $8.6billion in 789 deals (including biotechnology and medical devices). Two thirds (68%) of the investment in biotechnology went to first-time/early-stage development deals and the remainder to the expansion stage of development (14%), seed-stage companies (11%) and late-stage companies (7%). However, it was the software industry which invested in the greatest