The issue of unblocking financial supply channels to support technological innovation has always been a concern. However, existing literature mainly focuses on the question of “whose money enterprises are more inclined to use for innovation” from the perspective of financing sources, with less attention paid to the question of “whether the funds after financing are used for innovation”.

Based on the financing classification method of Minsky (1977) and the thought of Schumpeter (1935) on credit expansion and enterprise innovation, this paper uses the data of R&D investment of A-share listed enterprises from 2009 to 2022 to study the difference of investment after financing and its effect on technological innovation from the new perspective of the actual investment of funds after financing. The results show that the difference in financing investment significantly affects investment in technological innovation, as evidenced by the fact that hedging financing investment promotes technological innovation, while both speculative financing investment and Ponzi financing investment inhibit technological innovation. Mechanism testing shows that the financial asset crowding effect, the liquidity fund reservoir effect, and the financial performance effect of financing investment play a mediating role, which makes short-term profit-seeking enterprises or enterprises with insufficient cash flow more willing to choose speculative financing and Ponzi financing, resulting in the mismatch effect of financing investment. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the heterogeneity of enterprise characteristics affects the input effect of the difference in financing investment on technological innovation, which is more negatively significant in enterprises with lower productivity, lower return on investment, and lower information transparency.

The marginal contributions of this paper are as following: First, from the new perspective of financing investment, it explores the relationship between the actual investment of funds after financing and the impact of technological innovation, supplementing the research gap. Second, it clarifies the intrinsic relationship between the choice of financing investment mode and the investment in technological innovation, providing a new theoretical basis for unblocking financial supply channels of technological innovation. Third, the empirical findings show that there is a mismatch effect of financing investment among China’s listed enterprises, providing a new policy basis for how to reduce the myopia behavior of enterprises and improve the efficiency of using innovation funds.