Digital finance can effectively ease corporate financing constraints and enhance corporate R & D innovation capabilities. Taking the financial data of technology-based SMEs on the Growth Enterprise Market from 2013 to 2020 as a sample, the fixed effect model is used to empirically test the impact of digital finance and financial flexibility on enterprises’ R & D investment from the external environment and internal mechanism. The results show that digital finance has a significant positive impact on the R & D investment of technology-based SMEs through the breadth of coverage, depth of use and degree of digitization; Financial flexibility is positively correlated with R & D investment of technology-based SMEs, and has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between digital finance and R & D investment; Further heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of digital finance on the R & D investment of enterprises is heterogeneous due to the different life cycles and regions of enterprises. Therefore, technology- based SMEs should focus on the coordination of internal and external financial resources based on their own characteristics, and effectively support innovative R & D activities.
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