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Most entrepreneurs are continually concerned about their finances. Their companies perhaps not yet profitable, they may have a fear of “running out of dry powder.” These entrepreneurs often have fallen in love with their company's technologies, products, and potential markets, but they require more resources. Invariably these emerging ventures shroud their fear of the grueling capital raising marathon by presenting voluminous business plans to potential investors. They often flaunt their “optimized business models.”” Investors, however, typically want to know why the potential investment is such a good deal. The entrepreneur often wants guidance regarding what to say to whom in a changing financing environment.

In this article, our “Practitioner's Corner” associate editor Joe Levangie collaborates with a long-time colleague Paul Broude to address how businesses should “make their capital-raising initiatives happen.” Levangie, a venture advisor and entrepreneur, first worked with Broude, a business and securities attorney, in 1985 when they went to London to pursue financing for an American startup. They successfully survived all-night drafting sessions, late-night clubbing by the company founder, and even skeet shooting and barbequing at the investment banker's country house to achieve the first “Greenfield” flotation by an American company on the Unlisted Securities Market of the London Stock Exchange. To ascertain how the entrepreneur can determine what financing options exist in today's investing climate, read on.

Those who would establish high-growth businesses (HGBs) in rural settings face significant challenges. We report findings from more than 80 in-depth interviews regarding the obstacles that rural HGBs face and identify approaches for overcoming these obstacles. First, interviews confirm the need for improved access to a full range of financing options to support HGBs across different development stages. Second, HGBs need in-depth, sophisticated technical assistance, which is generally unavailable in rural areas. Finally, cooperation among financial and technical service providers is vital to program success. Based on these findings, a model is proposed for successful development of HGBs in rural areas.

Belonging to the financial technologies’ companies, equity-based crowdfunding platforms offer investors the opportunity to become shareholders through the purchase of small equity stakes of new innovative ventures. This paper aims to investigate gender-related differences in the behaviour of investors in firms seeking equity financing in Latin America.

Using a unique database, with combined information from different equity crowdfunding platforms in Brazil, Chile and Mexico, the authors study the population of 492 projects between 2013 and 2017. To analyse the relationship between investors’ gender-related differences and equity crowdfunding investment, this paper applies Poisson regression.

Results suggest that the probability that an investor finances a firm is based on gender bias. Investors prefer firms led by entrepreneurs that are similar to them in terms of gender. Furthermore, the authors find evidence that both female and male investors are risk-averse and are more likely to invest in the equity of firms that are older and offer a higher percentage of equity. However, female investors are associated with firms that are on average older and offer 0.02% more equity.

These findings have implications for crowdfunding platforms managers when selecting their target companies and policymakers when defining political actions to promote greater use of equity crowdfunding among female entrepreneurs and decrease barriers hindering women’s access to investment.

Unique in its proposition and data usage, this study sheds light on the relationship between investors and entrepreneurs in the Latin American equity crowdfunding market.

The authors investigate whether matchings in equity crowdfunding are more likely to happen if homophily exists between investors and investees. They focus on gender, age and geographical proximity as crucial dimensions of similarity among individuals and thus of homophily. Furthermore, they investigate whether the effect of homophily depends on the risk of opportunism, which investors allegedly attribute to proponents basing on their area of residence.

The authors analyze a hand-collected database of 13 equity crowdfunding campaigns launched by Italian innovative start-ups from January 2013 to June 2016, which includes information about 384 equity crowdfunding investments carried out by 361 different investors.

The authors find a significant effect of geographical proximity and age similarity in explaining the probability that an investor finances a campaign. Moreover, these effects are particularly relevant if the proponent is located in areas characterized by a high risk of opportunistic behavior. Interestingly enough, they do not detect any significant effect related to gender.

In this paper, the authors have the unique opportunity to analyze a whole market (the Italian market) during three years, from inception (2013–2016), and to collect the identities of the investors in all successful campaigns.

To reminisce about my entrepreneurial career with appropriate self-importance, I might note that I have helped create companies and jobs. This contributes in a small way to economic growth. Economic growth is, however, an often illusive concept to characterize. Job growth is an essential component of a dynamic, innovative process. In the late 1970s jobs growth research suggested that the vast majority of new jobs are created by small business formation. Such empirical research is difficult to support with theoretical constructs. Classic macroeconomics analysis discounts size-offirm as irrelevant. Entrepreneurial contribution is therefore difficult to assess.

The purpose of this paper is to explore why, despite the development of a hybrid investing logic, funding problems are so persistent for early-stage Cleantech ventures (“Cleantechs”). An institutional logics lens is adopted to analyze how key actors' perceptions and communications of the Cleantech value proposition shape information asymmetries (IAs).

A mixed methods approach draws on 82 Cleantech pitch decks and 31 investment guidance documents, and insights from interviews with 42 key informants and nine Cleantech CEOs and their investors.

IAs persist, first of all, because key investor and entrepreneurial actors combine different goals in the hybrid Cleantech value proposition. Interestingly, the analysis of Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) as a critical communication tool reveals a further mismatch in how actors actually combine logics. The authors ultimately identify three emergent actor roles – traditional laggard, developer and boundary spanner – that present a framework of how the three most influential actor groups develop EPIs and via that a hybrid Cleantech financing logic to overcome IAs.

The paper enhances the entrepreneurial finance literature primarily by showing that in contexts of hybrid investing a more nuanced understanding of institutional logics in terms of ends and means is critical to overcome IAs. While prior works highlight goal incompatibilities, the findings here suggest that the (in-)compatibility of goals as well as EPI choices of the same actors is likely to be the key explanandum for the stickiness of IAs and the funding gap. The novel emerging role framework offers additional theoretical, policy and practical advances for hybrid logic development.

This paper aims to explain the fundraising and valuation processes of startups and discuss the conflicts of interest between entrepreneurs, venture capital (VC) firms and stakeholders in the context of startup corporate governance. Further, this paper uses the examples of WeWork and Zenefits to explain how a failure of stakeholders to demand an external audit from an independent accounting firm in early stages of funding led to an opportunity for fraud.

The methodology used is a literature review and analysis of startup valuation combined with the Fraud Triangle Theory. This paper also provides a discussion of WeWork and Zenefits, both highly visible examples of startup fraud, and explores an increased role for independent external auditors in fraud risk mitigation on behalf of stakeholders prior to an initial public offering (IPO).

This paper documents a number of fraud risks posed by the “fake it till you make it” ethos and investor behavior and pricing in the world of entrepreneurial finance and VC, which could be mitigated by a greater awareness of startup stakeholders of the value of an external audit performed by an independent accounting firm prior to an IPO.

An implication of this paper is that regulators should consider greater oversight of the startup financing process and potentially take steps to facilitate greater independence of participants in the IPO process.

Given the potential conflicts of interest between VC firms, investment banks and startup founders, the investors at the time of an IPO may be exposed to the risk that the shares of the IPO firms are overvalued at offering.

This study demonstrates how startup practices can be extended to the Fraud Triangle and issue a call to action for the accounting profession to take a greater role in protecting the public from startup fraud. This study then offers recommendations for regulators and standards entities.

There are few academic papers in the financial crime literature that link the valuation and culture of startup firms with fraud risk. This study provides a concise explanation of the process of valuation for startups and highlights the considerations for stakeholders in assessing fraud risk. In addition, this study documents an emerging role for auditors as stewards of proper valuation for pre-IPO firms.

The negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic situation, especially in certain countries, have compelled organizations to shrink their hierarchies, reduce working hours, freeze hiring, and rely on gig workers to perform tasks. While these circumstances may be seen as a threat, certain vulnerable labor groups, such as women, seized the opportunity to develop entrepreneurial skills and launch their own firms. Others addressed smart platforms to engage in gig economy activities. This research investigates the aspects that drive women to be entrepreneurs, exploring the relationships between the entrepreneurial ecosystem, the gig economy, and women's entrepreneurship in a developing country.

Data were collected from 300 female entrepreneurs in Lebanon through questionnaires that measured the indicators and variables of the proposed model, which was tested applying partial least square.

The results show a positive influence of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and gig economy on women's entrepreneurship, stronger in the case of entrepreneurial ecosystem elements and almost similar for opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship.

This research achieves empirical evidence on the relationship between the entrepreneurial ecosystem, the gig economy, and women's entrepreneurship in the case of a developing country. The originality of this paper lies in its empirical and gendered approach, considering together the effects of entrepreneurial ecosystem factors and gig economy practices on women's entrepreneurship, especially relevant in a regional context like Lebanon, where digital economy may constitute an opportunity for economically vulnerable groups.

This study aims to explore how entrepreneurial firms' networking logics may change under different types of perceived uncertainty. The arrival of new knowledge from the entrepreneurial firm's network may alter the perceived technology and market uncertainty that in turn determines how the firm adopts or combines the two opposing logics of causation and effectuation. Focusing on the roles of external advisors recruited by the firms, the study probes the details of the cyclical process and the mechanism through which networking logics are altered.

In this study the authors conducted a 3-year longitudinal multiple case study of 12 United Kingdom (UK) high-tech start-ups from prefounding to A-round funding with 54 semistructured interviews and meeting observations.

The knowledge of external advisors with distinct experience often reshapes the entrepreneurial firm's perceptions of uncertainty, leading to logics change in network development. The authors identify two types of knowledge brought by external advisors and discover how these can influence three networking logic pathways under different levels of technology and market uncertainty.

The study is one of the first to map the paths of changing logics along with different types of uncertainty in the context of entrepreneurial network development. The study unpacks one of the key mechanisms of networking logic changes: the knowledge and expertise of those advisors recruited by the entrepreneurial firms. The process model of changing logics contributes to the effectuation literature and entrepreneurial network research.