Venture capital concerns the intervention of professionals in the share of small and recently constituted businesses. Their shares help the company develop their operations for a specific period of time.
This greatly improves the financing of firms with high growth potential by creating favorable conditions for the granting of bank loans. Indeed, the capital of investors is a tremendous leverage to gain access to bank financing.
It also allows entrepreneurs to take advantage of advice from these investors, their experience, their address book, etc. It is not uncommon that investors hold a seat on the board of directors with a significant weight in making decisions.
Is Venture capital and capital investment the same thing or are they different?
Venture capital includes all operations that involve buying shares of unlisted companies. These equity investments, usually minority, are performed by specialized professionals whose main aim is to achieve substantial gains in a relatively short time, usually between 4 and 5 years.
There are capital investments that help business in their different stages of development: creation, development and crisis.
Various private or semi-public equities are present on the market. Some are specializing in specific sectors of activity (bio technology, information technology, etc.)
Venture capital is almost exclusive to new companies, but not just any company. This kind of capital is given to creative and innovative young companies.
The venture capital firms typically for amounts in excess of 300,000 euros. However, some agencies are investing smaller amounts of between 5,000 and 76,000 euros (local venture capital) that may combine angels whose investments are typically between 50,000 and 150,000 euros.
There are capital investments for every stage of development of any business. For example, Seed Capital is given to companies that have just started or those that are in the process of developing a new line of product, or prototype. Of course, this kind of funding is given to companies that are already legally constituted.
Another example of capital investment is that given to companies that are already past the first stages. This is commonly referred to post-creation capital.
The term “venture capital” concerns only the first two types of intervention.