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The main aim of this article is to widen one's understanding of the value‐added contributions of business angels and, more specifically, their role as facilitators for further finance.

This article is based on in‐depth case studies of five experienced business angels. Data were collected by using a loosely structured interview guide which focused on the investment process.

Business angels add value besides the initial financial capital offered, typically in the form of strategic advice and networking. However, previous research has to a small extent examined the role of business angels as facilitators for further finance. The empirical findings in this study indicate that experienced business angels play a key role in order to facilitate further finance. Furthermore, entrepreneurs should bear in mind that the previous track record of the business angel strongly affects if and how they can facilitate further finance. Thus, active business angels can be viewed as a part of the entrepreneurial team, hence reducing the “liability of newness” for the entrepreneurial firm.

Future research should continue to examine business angels by using insight from social capital theory. Moreover, by using larger samples the findings from this exploratory study can be tested, thus getting more reliable results to extend one's knowledge about how business angels act as facilitators for further finance.

This study suggests that concepts from social capital theory seem to be viable when examining how business angels work when they are securing further finance for their portfolio firms.

During the last decade, there has been an increasing focus on commercialization of knowledge and technology from universities. However, universities report financing as being the main impediment to successful university spin‐off companies (USOs) creation, leaving valuable inventions un‐commercialized. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model in order to explain financing challenges experienced by USOs.

This paper presents a conceptual model illustrating financing challenges met by USOs, and provides an explanation why TTOs report that obtaining financing is their biggest impediment to spin‐off creation. Two different theoretical perspectives back this conceptual development: Knightian uncertainty and agency theory.

This theoretical examination suggests that increasing levels of uncertainty affect the investor's willingness to fund new companies in a negative way. Through the literature review, clear indications were also found for the increased uncertainty with which USOs are faced. It is therefore natural to conclude that investors are more reluctant to invest in USOs because of the level of uncertainty compared with other entrepreneurial companies.

This study made a generalization of USOs as a homogeneous group of companies, which is an oversimplification. Further research should address how different business models, types of resources and their institutional link affect USOs' capital requirements and their problems in raising the required capital.

The main contribution from this paper is the combination of theoretical insights from the concepts of Knightian uncertainty and agency theory. These combined with insights from previous empirical studies explain why USOs face specific challenges in order to raise risk capital.

The aim of this paper is to introduce the concept of liminality as a theoretical lens to explore and discuss how challenges, accompanied by frustrations and confusion, can enable significant learning in a teamwork setting. Student team narratives on how they handle challenges they face working to solve real-world problems are used as the basis for the discussion.

This is a case study using student narratives from an interdisciplinary master course at a Norwegian university.

We argue that the concept of liminality can support teachers and student teams to understand and handle challenges in ways that enable significant learning and innovation. Practical implications for teachers and facilitators are provided at the end of the paper.

This paper offers new lenses to understand the team- and learning processes in courses where students work with real-world problems. If the teams are able to stay open in the liminality phase it enables significant learning and innovation. This capacity is valuable in a time where teams face complexity and uncertainty is becoming more of a standard than an exception, both in higher education and in working life.