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Improving financing
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More risk capital
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Better borrowing environment
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CIP Financial Instruments
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Data
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Guide to funding
Seed and start-up finance
Finding finance for starting a business is difficult, because there is a high risk that the entrepreneur might fail, and few investors are willing to take that risk.
Seed and start-up funding for innovative entrepreneurs often comes from the entrepreneur, friends, professional contacts and family. Increasingly, investment from business angels (wealthy individuals) is an option for many entrepreneurs. In addition, public interventions in most cases are necessary to develop the markets in early-stage equity finance.
Currently, financing through the high growth and innovative SME facility is available to small businesses in their early or expansion phase under the Competitiveness and Innovation framework Programme (CIP) for the years 2007 to 2013.
Success story - Investing in new technologies
Founded in 2002, Sonaptic Ltd has become one of the leading developers of advanced audio technologies for the mobile device market. Today, the UK company has grown from its four initial founders to over 30 employees and has also been acquired by Wolfson Microelectronics. More than 50 million phones now include Sonaptic's software. For David Monteith, CEO, the investment his company received through the EIF was "critical for the development of the business". Sonaptic benefited from start-up finance from the Pentech venture capital fund in 2003, partly funded from the Commission's ETF start-up scheme.
If you want to know more details, please watch the video "Access to finance: closer to SMEs".
Commission policy
- Seed finance for high-growth SMEs active in eco-innovation: this report (2007) describes the main issues at stake and puts forward recommendations for the supply side, the demand side and the role of public policy as a driver for eco-innovative product creation.
- Technology transfer: a workshop (2006) identified good practices in financing technology transfer from universities and research laboratories into commercial products in the marketplace.
- Intellectual property: a workshop (2006) looked at current practices in using intellectual property for raising finance.
- Development of seed capital funding: a workshop (2006) contributed to policy development at European level to enhance access to seed capital as well as identifying good practices and making recommendations.
- Best practices in early-stage equity finance: a report (2005) by an expert group identified criteria for best practices in public policy to support early-stage equity finance.
Networks
- EASY (early-stage investors for high-growth businesses) is a meeting point for early-stage investors and innovative businesses seeking risk capital from across Europe.
- Gate2Growth is a pan-European business platform for entrepreneurs seeking financing, investors, incubator managers, knowledge transfer offices and academics. It provides various tools to help people access finance.