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This study explores the value added contribution of informal investors in the entrepreneurial process, something that up to date has received very limited attention. By analyzing the life experience and career background of four informal investors the study examines the personal resources these individuals build up and develop during their careers...
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Context 1
... on the view on entrepreneurship proposed by Shane and Venkataraman (2000;see also Shane, 2003), the entrepreneurial process can be described as passing from opportunity recognition where the opportunity is discovered and evaluated, to opportunity exploitation where a new venture is formed and established around the opportunity. The entrepreneurial process is described in Figure 1 below. As can be seen in Figure 1, the entrepreneurial process is depicted as a linear sequential process. ...
Context 2
... entrepreneurial process is described in Figure 1 below. As can be seen in Figure 1, the entrepreneurial process is depicted as a linear sequential process. We acknowledge that in reality individuals may engage in both activities simultaneously, for example if they are involved in several concurrent projects that are in different stages of development (see e.g., Rosa and Scott, 1999;Westhead and Wright, 1998). ...
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Engineers are increasingly expected to master the knowledge and skills for entrepreneurship. Academic courses on entrepreneurship have been adopted in engineering schools around the world. However, the experiential learning of technology entrepreneurship remains challenging because it requires not only the experiences of ideation, design and protot...
Citations
... No obstante, los expertos consideran que es insuficiente el capital de riesgo y la financiación disponible de inversionistas privados. Aunque son pocos los estudios especializados en el tema de la inversión informal en las fases iníciales de una empresa (Politis & Gabrielsson, 2006), existe acuerdo sobre la importancia de esta inversión como fuente de financiación. Por lo tanto, es necesario que en la Región Caribe se estimule a los ángeles inversionistas. ...
This study identifies and discusses the different post-investment trajectories of Latin American young technology-based firms (YTBFs). Two contrasting types of post-investment trajectories were identified: the ‘fast sale’, in which local YTBFs are purchased by a foreign firm and founders decide to leave the company, and the ‘multilatina’, in which the YTBF grows mainly by organic means and also through acquisitions until it becomes one of the industry's big global payers, with the founders still playing a leading role. There is also a continuum of intermediate situations such as in the case of Core where the original location remains as an R&D center in the context of the emerging post-investment configuration of the firm. These differences are related to the local resources in the emerging organizational configuration, notably the match between entrepreneurs' skills and vision, the growing demands of the firm after the investment, and the level of development of the local ecosystem. Foreign venture capital (VC) could play an important role in this regard by accelerating the pace of growth and internationalization faced by these firms. However, this could also lead to the exit of the entrepreneurs. The impact of these trajectories at the regional level should take account of the ‘entrepreneurial recycling’ concept suggested by Mason and Harrison (2006) by considering what happens with the entrepreneurs after the investment.
Business Angels (BAs) are an important financing source for SMEs, and seed and start-up companies in particular. BAs are even more important in countries and regions lacking an institutionalised VC infrastructure, often being the only major source of equity finance for young innovative SMEs. An important additional element of their activity is often the provision of non-financial benefits like mentoring/advice, contacts etc.
However, especially in comparison with the US, the European BAs segment is still in its emerging phase both in terms of the number of active BAs and the amounts invested by BAs. Strained exit markets as well as an overall deterioration of the private wealth situation of many business angels as result of the financial crisis additionally limit the investment activity of BAs with investment activity at low levels.
This paper gives insights into the BA segment with a special focus on Germany. First we introduce the concept of BA financing. In a second step we analyse the BA market in Germany. We conclude that there is a significant excess demand for early stage financing. In the third part of this paper we explain, how the EIF aims to address this by providing a flexible and timely support to the BAs market through establishing an intermediation infrastructure to efficiently leverage this investor base. This infrastructure is going to be piloted in collaboration with the German Business Angel Network (BAND) in Germany soon (launch planned in the context of the Deutscher Business Angels Tag in March 2012), with the intention to conduct a roll-out in other geographies following the successful implementation of the pilot.
