This paper analyses the Business Angel (BA) portfolio of the European Angels Fund (EAF), an initiative of the European Investment Fund, which engages in co-investment relationships with experienced business angels across Europe. It uses EIF’s proprietary database to shed light on a specific...

Business Angels (BAs) are an important financing source for SMEs, and seed and start-up companies in particular. BAs are even more important in countries and regions lacking an institutionalised VC infrastructure, often being the only major source of equity finance for young innovative SMEs. An...

The EIF VC Survey and the EIF Private Equity Mid-Market Survey (the largest combined regular survey exercises among General Partners on a pan-European level) provide an opportunity to retrieve unique market insights. This publication is based on the results of the 2022 waves of these two surveys...

While many studies explain the correlation between firm-level productivity and export status entirely by better firms self-selecting into exporting, a few studies find evidence of reverse causation. Especially in developing or transition economies, exporters seem to improve performance after...

The creation of value through innovation is among the defining traits of new technology-driven ventures. In this paper we contribute to the literature by investigating the value of innovations for start-ups supported by EIF in the years 1996 to 2014, as measured through patent applications. The...

Despite the sometimes intensive media coverage and exuberant storytelling around the industry, venture capital (VC) investors tend to operate in highly opaque markets. On this premise, this work contributes to the literature via a hand-collected dataset of about 3,600 EIF-backed VC investments...

Start-up growth is often treated as a stylised fact, despite an extensive research body composed of divergent theories and empirical findings. Against this background, this work contributes to the literature by analysing a hand-collected dataset of 2,951 EIF-backed VC start-ups. Section 2...