Client - Department for Business Innovation and Skills and reporting to the British Business Bank
This early assessment of the UK government's £100m Angel Co-investment Funds (ACF) was undertaken in 2014 in partnership with Professor Colin Mason of Glasgow University, a leading international expert in business angel finance. The scheme which, launched in 2011, aims to fill an equity funding gap at between £200k and £2m in the UK seed and early stage SME funding market, providing angel syndicates with matching 'stretch funding' of up to 50%, whilst also raising the standard of angle investing. The project involved qualitative survey work with 19 successful and unsuccessful business angel applicants and 20 assisted and unassisted businesses. Overall, our findings suggest that the scheme is effectively filling an equity financing gap, well supported in the market and not duplicating any alternative public or private funding, but it is too early to tell whether it is raising the standards of business angel investment.
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