The main goal of this paper is to investigate the effects of the availability of complementary assets needed for start-up formation on the amount of R&D investments by an incumbent firm and on the creation of start-ups by former employees, in a setup characterized by weak property rights. Throughout the paper we denote with ‘complementary assets’ all the assets that are needed to bring a new idea to the market. As we argue in some details below through specific examples, such assets might be provided by third parties in the market, or directly by incumbents.