EU expert webinar

Description

The objective of this webinar is to further evidence-based analysis and design of public policies aimed at improving access to finance for promising companies with high-growth potential, especially in their scale-up growth stage. Such scale-up companies are a small fraction of the start-up population that, when properly financed, disproportionally contribute to employment, innovation and growth (Acs, Parsons, & Spencer, 2008, Benedetti Fasil et al., 2021, Shane, 2009). For this reason, governments support them via a variety of means, including accelerators, guarantees, participative loans and governmental venture capital programmes. Such public support in the provision of finance is justified by a market failure since the companies in question rarely qualify for “traditional bank loans” as they often have no proven payback capacity and lack collateral. While there is an extensive body of the literature on the equity gap faced by promising start-ups in the early stages of their development – the so-called small equity gap - there is little research to date about the financing gap faced by companies in later stages of their growth – known as the scale-up financing gap or second equity gap. This webinar seeks to respond to the dearth of research and limited policy action through an in-depth discussion with academics, stakeholders and policy-makers. The aim of this webinar is twofold: to identify and characterise the scale-up gap in Europe; and to discuss how to address it. Key issues include: (i) what is the scale-up gap and in what circumstances is it problematic?; (ii) the difference in the financial landscape between the EU and US and China; (iii) the causes and the economic consequences that arises from the scale-up gap; (iv) and what measures and instruments are available at EU level to bring about desired changes in scale-up finance?

Period	05.10.2021
Event type	Seminar
Location	Brussels, BelgiumShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International