Commissioned by the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship/Research and Knowledge Exchange Fund
A research grant study commissioned in 2010 on how the credit crunch has impacted on the finance of technology-based small firms (TBSFs) in the UK. This research explored the role played by various public sector funded initiatives that had been introduced to combat the equity gap. The study involved 100 demand-side interviews with TBSF owner/managers and supply-side interviews with finance providers, including venture capital organisations, business angel syndicates, banks, and public sector venture capital and loan funds. The research focused on five English regions and Scotland. Key findings were that, whilst both young and established TBSFs performed well during the 2007-10 period, access to both debt and equity finance had become more difficult and had restricted business growth in 36 per cent of cases, with one third of cases perceiving future finance over the next year or two as problematic. This suggested a growing need for public sector interventions.
