Informed capital is a crucial ingredient to a well-functioning market for start-up finance, especially in times of difficult market conditions. For bank-based systems, the question regarding which investors actually supply informed capital has not yet been answered. To fill this gap, we conduct...

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...

It is still an open question what kind of smart capital relational investors actually supply. We divide smart capital into several components and conduct a survey among 85 German suppliers of start-up finance. The results show that the degree of smartness is determined by the financial product...