Informal individual investors, business angels, finance and advise a large number of start-up companies. By sharing their experiences and expanding the financing opportunities of entrepreneurs they contribute to growth and employment, and make European culture more entrepreneurial.
The supply of start-up and early-stage equity finance has become more and more dependent on business angels, as venture capital funds are not able to accommodate a large number of small deals with heavy due diligence requirements. The traditional European source of start-up and early-stage financing has been bank lending, but it has become unattractive for banks due to its high overhead costs.
Recognition of the importance of business angels and angel networks at public policy level is needed to create an environment favouring their investments.
The focus of this Benchmarking business angels project report is in the possibilities of public sector to stimulate the activities of business angels and business angel networks. The project has been carried out by an expert group that was set up by the Enterprise Directorate-General of the European Commission. The expert group was composed of experts nominated by governments and private sector experts. This combination provided to be a very fruitful basis for the work of the group.
The project was anchored on the observation in several forums that the potential investment capacity of business angels in Europe had not been fully utilised. In many Member States the activities of business angel networks had not developed enough so that they could effectively facilitate the matching of investors and projects. The benchmarking project aimed to find the best practices and set up benchmarks so that the situation could be improved. The final report has been written by the Commission services based on the outcome of the expert group meetings
inicio / srinnovacion / innovacionCLM / informes /
