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Concern about the equity gap in the UK has existed for more than 60 years. Despite various government measures and institutional responses (e.g. the development of a venture capital industry) an equity gap still persists. Current debate has recognized the role of the informal venture capital market as a source of risk capital for SMEs. Argues that this market is both inefficient and underdeveloped, due largely to information deficiencies which hinder contact between potential investors and entrepreneurs seeking finance. Against this background, identifies the role of business angel networks (BANs) as a key means of stimulating the flow of informational venture capital in the UK. In particular, a government scheme to provide pump‐priming assistance to establish five local BAN demonstration projects is shown to have achieved impressive results. However, with the recent emergence of a number of private sector BANs, the continued role of government is now being questioned. Further demonstrates that public sector BANs, operating on a local scale, are filling a different market niche from that of private sector BANs, which operate predominantly on a national scale. Concludes that the top priority for policy is to ensure that all parts of the UK are served by local BANs. An appropriate way forward might be to build on experimental networking arrangements between local, public sector BANs and national, privately operated BANs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an expanding venture capital (VC) system beyond economic capital concept, based on “triple bottom line” of enterprises.

A complete VC system is given, first of all, and then the gap in the existing VC system is explored. To develop a VC system, the gaps must be filled based on a university‐government‐industry triple helix. Since corporate value view has been changed from one‐dimensional to three‐dimensional, social as well as cultural, and humanistic elements must be considered in a broader VC system. The approaches include developing social capital, cultural capital and promoting risk awareness.

The VC system in a country/region consists of economic and non‐economic capital investment. Both play important roles in parallel. Social and cultural capital investment will work as “soft capital” to remit the gaps from an insufficient economic capital system.

The policy implication of this paper is that policy makers may give more thought to developing non‐economic capital to fill the VC gaps in either an existing or an expanding VC system.

Men founders raise almost 50× more venture capital (VC) than women. As 93 per cent of VCs are men, because of the significant gender imbalance in gatekeepers and investment decision-makers for early-stage capital, there may be critical outcomes for women entrepreneurs who are being caused from men having overweighed in decision-making roles. Outcomes include biases against women by VCs that prevent their ventures from being considered for funding from the pitch as well as obtaining opportunities to pitch VCs in consideration for funding from biases in the evaluations of the businesses themselves.

This paper is a consolidation of several studies the author has conducted in VC decision-making and gender bias to understand the drivers of the enormous gender gap in VC funding. The author presented it as a talk at the University of Regina and was asked to submit a paper about it here.

The findings reveal how the 93 per cent male context of the VC industry is in itself a significant cause of the gender gap in funding. If there were more women VCs, more women entrepreneurs would be funded.

The author showcases how the gender gap in decision-making roles in VC has important implications for women entrepreneurs to obtain funding.

The sizes, and thereby minimum investments, of venture capital funds grew phenomenally during 1995‐2000. Simultaneously, business started to transform from capital to knowledge intensive and a new gap emerged between venture and capital. A diverse group of actors referred to herein as Venture‐to‐Capital or V2C players help entrepreneurs gross this gap. While incubators, business angels, and various other types of V2C players serve an important role in the emerging knowledge economy, research on their operation has been scarce. The objective of this exploratory study is to define the usability of performance measurement (PM) in the V2C context. Also in the V2C context, PM should be carried out by using a balanced set of measures from several perspectives. Herein, V2C operating models are examined, and critical success‐factors searched‐for, from the perspectives of both entrepreneur and venture capitalist. We suggest nine success factors, several underlying measures, and directions for further research.

The venture capital industry is an important provider of capital to start-ups and has grown considerably in recent decades. This study explores how investors' gender perceptions influence venture capital investment decisions in an industry that remains highly gender imbalanced, both amongst the venture capital decision-makers and with respect to the allocation of capital to entrepreneurs.

The authors' approach was informed by a thorough literature review and in-depth qualitative interviews with ten decision-makers at some of the foremost venture capital funds in Norway. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using NVivo.

The authors' findings demonstrate that the Norwegian venture capital industry is influenced by homophily and role congruity. The authors highlight the challenges entrepreneurs face in gaining access to venture capital if they are not already members of the investors' network, a situation that results in a recycling effect that helps maintain the industry’s gender imbalance. Moreover, it appears that venture capitalists (VCs) favour masculine characteristics when assessing entrepreneurs, revealing a potential incongruence between female characteristics and perceived entrepreneurial attributes.

The authors' study contributes to and extends the extant literature on homophily and role congruity. Indeed, through investigating the gender-based perceptions of VCs, the authors shed new light on the mechanisms involved in their assessment of entrepreneurs, as well as on the drivers and barriers affecting female entrepreneurs.

As the venture capital industry matures and competition increases, understanding the processes by which entrepreneurs select venture capitalists will become increasingly important. Empirical work suggests that awareness of venture capital firms is still low and that the specialist financial and legal advisers have an important role to play in guiding the flow of proposals to venture capitalists.

This paper investigates gender disparity in investment decisions within the popular American TV show Shark Tank.

The research uses a comprehensive dataset of 925 pitches from 14 seasons and 316 episodes, covering August 2009 to May 2023.

Contrary to previous studies, the findings indicate that female entrepreneurs do n'ot face discrimination in terms of their pitching success rates, regardless of their industry affiliation. However, the authors did observe that female entrepreneurs tend to receive lower valuations, both self-assessed and in final deals. This suggests a self-imposed gender gap in venture capital and angel investing, likely stemming from lower entrepreneurial aspirations among women.

To tackle this issue, the authors propose promoting female venture capital by increasing the representation of female entrepreneurs and business angels on Shark Tank. Such role models can inspire aspiring women in these fields. Additionally, the authors believe that mixed-gender founder teams, comprising both men and women, can play a significant role in developing promising startups with viable business models.

Women in entrepreneurship can have a significant impact on economic and social development globally and particularly in developing countries. But the challenges entrepreneurial women face are unique and multiple, pressing the need for research and policies to maximize impact. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the challenges women start-up founders face to secure funding in the technology industry. The tech industry was selected because it is a non-traditional industry for women with high potential for role models to bridge an existing gap in information on women start-up founders to secure capital financing to attain business sustainability. It covers venture capital investors’ role, Latin American cultural reasons, and gender.

This study is based on an inductive, qualitative approach and in-depth interviews with 20 women entrepreneurs and start-up founders from Latin American countries who received support from the Chilean Government sponsored accelerator “Start-Up Chile.”

The analysis uncovered ten aspects that impact entrepreneurial women founders’ access to capital in three categories: capital needs, networks, and individual characteristics.

This study identifies factors that affect women entrepreneurs in raising capital and in facing the following challenges: first, working in a non-traditional field for women as it is the technology industry, and second assuming a leadership role as start-up founders. The results offer recommendation with potential to drive public policies in Latin America, which may be scalable to other developing and also to developed countries where market systems prevail. The findings show that women entrepreneurs, but also men, seeking start-up financing and alternatives are a viable source of employment and economic sustainability to mitigate the effects of increasing levels of unemployment worldwide.

The chapter provides a practical guide to identify and define different funding sources for entrepreneurial and innovation endeavors, including a methodology to describe return on investment expectations from funding sources. Also, the authors provide recommended key performance indicators and valuation methods when pitching to potential investors.

The identification, access, and acquisition of financial resources are critical to the growth of any entrepreneurial venture. To perform better, growth-oriented women entrepreneurs need financial resources. Unfortunately, obtaining financial resources is a greater obstacle for women entrepreneurs than for men entrepreneurs. This chapter considers three different options for growth financing: crowdfunding, angel financing, and venture capital. Suggested strategies for women entrepreneurs seeking to raise money are also offered.