Shifting sands: the changing nature of the early stage venture capital market in the UK

The UK early-stage venture capital market is currently experiencing major changes. With private funds - once the bedrock of start-up investment for entrepreneurs - moving away from the early stage, it is not just entrepreneurs but the economy as a whole that will be affected. The shift comes at a time when there is real pressure for the UK to build great global companies to match those of the US, India and China as well as a harsher environment in which to start a new business. But as long as investors continue drifting away from the smaller deals that new firms depend upon, many businesses will struggle to get a foothold

Startup ventures and equity finance: how do business accelerators and business angels’ assess the human capital of socio-environmental mission led entrepreneurs?

We investigate the role of entrepreneurs’ human capital on the potential of newly created ventures to receive equity funding from Accelerators and Business Angels using a resource-based approach to entrepreneurship theory. Using data from 10,563 for-profit innovative ventures, we find significant differences between those two groups. More specifically, formal education and founding experience of the entrepreneurial team is positively associated with the likelihood of the team to receive equity from Angels but negatively associated with the likelihood of the team to receive equity from Accelerators. Overall, our results are in line with the theoretical argument that human capital signals are important in reducing the information asymmetries faced by angels and ultimately driving entrepreneurs’ success in securing angel funding, but our results also suggest that some aspects of human capital signals do not contribute to the entrepreneur’s success in receiving accelerator funding. Our findings have important repercussions for the quality of design and operation of both private and state supported programmes and accelerator manager

Venture capital: now and after the dotcom crash

High growth, innovative companies are disproportionately important for economic growth in the UK. Venture capital is an important source of finance for these companies, one of the few sources with an appetite for risk that matches the uncertainty that comes with pioneering, innovative ventures and the ability to provide management support to take a company from initial proof of concept to mass market growth. This has seen venture capital act as a catalyst for new industries and ground-breaking global companies. And yet, the venture capital industry in the UK has been in a period of decline. This has been particularly true for early-stage venture capital as NESTA outlined last year. This report provides an update on the venture capital market in 2009, examines similarities and differences between the current crisis and the one triggered by the dotcom crash and considers prospects for a recovery

Technology foresight for growth and productivity: Case study of UK digital health SMEs

Since the early 2000s, a significant number of corporate organisations successfully applied an innovative management approach to the monitoring of new technologies and the systematic analysis of their future evolution and impact. Despite the growing popularity of technology foresight amongst large corporations, there is little evidence on its use in SMEs. However, foresight might be very beneficial to SMEs that are facing technological changes, by enabling them to pool their knowledge about new technologies and thus to set priorities and joint efforts, in a systematic way, for the optimal allocation of their resources. This paper aims to develop and test a simple, effective and scalable foresight method specifically responding to the needs (and challenges) of SMEs in UK clusters. We illustrate the results of a foresight exercise that involved 16 SMEs in the London Digital Health cluster. The main novelty of this foresight exercise is related to the involvement of different entrepreneurs of different SMEs (rather than a team of managers from the same organisation, as it is usually the case of technology foresight in large corporations) and the adoption of a bespoke set of different techniques, tailored to the specific needs of SMEs

Investments and innovation: regional venture capital activity, business innovation and an ecology of interactions

This research adds to the growing literature from recent years on innovation finance, innovation systems, and regional economic and innovation policy. Although the role of business has been seen as critical within the regional innovation system, the role of business financing intermediaries has received considerably less attention despite its recognised role as a central actor of the system. This research focuses on an innovation player that seems to have been neglected by scholars to date, namely the venture capital industry. The research examines the role of different types of venture capital, public and private, in fostering innovation at the regional level. In examining this relationship, this thesis empirically analyses the characteristics of 4117 investments deals made to 2359 companies, the innovation outputs of these businesses and the responses to a survey of 50 venture capital professionals. The contribution of this thesis is threefold: First, this thesis investigates whether and how the supply of private sector venture capital and supportive public interventions has changed the availability of venture capital at the regional level. It examines the combination of venture capital in the UK regions by providing a detailed analysis of the extent of venture capital public dependency in each UK region. It also elaborates on the potential implications of the public sectors’s domination in venture capital provision in several UK regions. The regional dimension of the analysis is of special interest as it is the first comprehensive analysis of the source of VC investments (public or private) for each UK region. From a regional perspective, the UK now appears to have two venture capital markets. In London, the South East and, to a lesser extent, the East of England, private sector investors dominate investment activity. This contrasts with the remainder of the UK where the venture capital market is underpinned by extensive public sector involvement. Second, this thesis also investigates the role of venture capital in innovation using patents as a proxy variable for business innovation. In this way, it contributes to the literature by analysing the relation between patenting practices of venture capital backed firms, paying particular attention to two aspects: first, the company’s acquisition of venture finance and progress through the venture capital journey and second, the relationship between patent practices and source of venture capital finance (public or private) in UK regions. The analysis shows a clear relationship between venture capital and patents. Companies with patents are more likely to secure follow up venture capital finance compared with companies without patents. The econometric analysis results also suggest that UK companies with moderate public venture capital support are positively associated with patents while companies with extensive public venture capital support are negatively associated with patents, compared to companies with solely private venture capital support. The final part of the thesis investigates whether the environment in which funds operate may explain observed differences in the ability of these funds to invest in companies with the potential to innovate. It does this by examining the ecology of interaction between venture capital and regional innovation systems. This is the first detailed empirical investigation of the relationship between different types of venture capital (private or public) and other players of the innovation system such as universities incubators, research institutes, and regional authorities. Three important findings emerge from this analysis. First, venture capital public dependence is strongly and significantly associated with higher volumes of interactions with the outside world. The more publicly dependent a fund is, the more it interacts with other players of the innovation system. Second, the role of proximity is still important within the VC industry. Venture capitalists from both the private and the public sector, are more likely to interact with their counterparts from the same region. Third, there is evidence to suggest that operators of publicly backed funds are lacking close connections with their counterparts from the private sectors. This may have implications for their ability to approach and attract private heavy weighted venture capital funds and limited partners that can provide follow on investments or raise further funding for the fund. Although publicly backed venture capitalists interact to a greater extent than the private counterparts, they experience less success (measured as financial performance of the fund or performance of their portfolio companies). It is widely acknowledged that interactions between venture capitalists and other players promotes tacit knowledge, but the results of this thesis suggests that interaction on its own is not enough to provoke success. Overall, the findings of this research suggests that the distinction between the two venture capital markets in the UK, publicly or privately driven, is not limited to the volume or type of venture capital activity but also relates to the ecology of interactions between venture capitalists and other players of the regional innovation system. Since publicly backed funds do not promote innovation to the same extent that private funds do when they invest alone, UK regions that are heavily dependent on public investments may not be able to receive the benefits of a functional venture capital industry. However, regions in which public venture capital funds work closely with private funds, demonstrate a relatively higher volume of venture capital backed companies with the potential to innovate. From a policy perspective, this finding suggests that from an innovation point of view, free public standing investments should be minimised while co-investments between publicly backed and private venture capital funds should be further encouraged

Banking on each other: peer-to-peer lending to business: evidence from funding circle

As banks retrench in the wake of the financial crisis, small businesses have found it increasingly hard to access the finance they need to grow. But there is some cause for optimism. New providers of business finance are stepping into the space left by banks, and are devising innovative business models, often taking advantage of new technologies and different sources of capital. One such model that has grown rapidly in recent years is peer–to–peer financing. This report seeks to cast some light on the emerging field of peer–to–peer lending to businesses, using a large set of data collected through Funding Circle, the largest peer–to–peer business lending site in the UK. Funding Circle has facilitated approximately £100 million in loans to over 1,700 companies to date (as of April 2013). This report looks at the characteristics of both Funding Circle’s borrowers and lenders, which enables the examination of the decision to seek or lend money through the peer–to–peer sites or ‘platforms’. It is the first attempt to analyse the peer–to–peer lending to businesses model using proprietary data from from 630 investors and 89 companies

The venture crowd: crowdfunding equity investments into business

Crowdfunding is big business. The idea of financing projects or businesses with small contributions from large numbers of people is catching on in a big way and now accounts for significant amounts of money. In 2011 alone, $1.5 billion was raised through crowdfunding for projects and businesses in need of funds. Not only does the model provide finance but also access to a large number of people who can test and market an idea. Crowdfunding takes a number of different forms, the most successful of which has been the reward–based model where participants receive non–financial rewards in exchange for donating to a project. The model effectively harnesses not only the contributors’ desire for the reward but also the intrinsic or social motivations to back a project. Other forms of the model are, however, also growing rapidly. The most recent of these is equity crowdfunding, where individuals receive small stakes in a privately owned young business in return for investment