Promoting Informal Venture Capital: The Evolution of Policy and Practice

The field of entrepreneurial finance and venture capital in general, and informal venture capital or business angel financing in particular, has become a major focus of academic research and policy debate internationally, with strong interest not only in Europe and North America but also in the Pacific Rim and Latin America. Over the past twenty years Richard Harrison and Colin Mason have established an international reputation as leading researchers in the field and have published widely in this area. This new volume collects for the first time in one accessible place the most significant of their work on business angel networks and the development of the informal venture capital market, as well as offers new material from these two pioneers of the field.

The ground-breaking research by Colin Mason and Richard Harrison has put ‘business angels’ firmly on the policy agenda internationally and has influenced policy and practice around the globe. There has been increasing recognition in recent years that the informal venture capital market is central to the development of an entrepreneurial economy. The original papers remain remarkably relevant – not only as policy in many countries looks for ways to respond to initiatives to promote business angels, but also as business angels help to ameliorate the deepening finance gap for new and young businesses while banks are constrained in their lending to small businesses. Together with the addition of a new introduction, conclusion, and chapter on coninvestment, networks, and syndicates, this volume represents the greatest synthesis of current knowledge and practice in the promotion of informal venture capital currently available.

Richard Harrison is Professor of Management and Director of Queen’ University Management School, Queen’s University Belfast.

Colin Mason is Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.