Sankt Gallen, University, Fiss., 2006.

Business angels are an important source of funding for new companies in need of external capital, since they usually are the first to invest in new companies. Therefore, it is valuable to study how business angels manage their investment process, both before and after the investment has been completed. As more investments are made, experience is gained and applied to the next investment process. Previous research has studied how other experience, such as education and entrepreneurial experience, affects parts of the investment process. The purpose of this study is to describe the investment process of business angels in Sweden and analyse how it differs depending on how many investments they have previously made, that is what investment experience they have. Finally, the purpose of the study is to develope a model to describe how the investment experience affects the investment process.  The study is based om an abducitve research approach and a qualitative research method. Empirical data has been collected with eleven interviews and two email conversations, and the respondents consist of business angels in Sweden who have made between one and 20 investments in new companies. The interviews conducted were semi-structured and of a narrative nature. The analytical method used to analyse the empirical data is the Gioia-method.  The conclusions of the study are that the investment process consists of five stages; deal flow, screening & investment criteria, negotiation, active ownership and exit. Further in the conclusion, the similarities and differences that exist in the investment process of business angels with more and less investment experience are presented. As experience is gained, business angels get a bigger and better deal flow based on informal contacts instead of formal networks. For business angels with more experience, the process is slower and they make a more accurate assessment of the company and, above all, the entrepreneur. Business angels with more experience find negotiations easier and they are more involved than those with less experience. Experience has an impact on active ownership, where more experienced business angels value taking an altruistic role in the company and the less experienced business angels consider themselves above all to take a value-creating role and contribute resources to the company. Business angels with more experience have a more dynamic view of exit, and business angels with less experience have a more static view of exit. It can be stated that investment experience has an impact on all stages of the investment process.

Business angels constitute an increasingly important source of capital for entrepreneurs in their ventures’ early stages. Previous research and reports, however, state that female entrepreneurs are heavily underfunded. Through a qualitative approach, this study aims to explore how gender plays a role in female business angels' decision to invest, using homosocial theory as a lens when analyzing the empirics gained from the nine conducted interviews with female business angels. Analyzing the empirics of this study, the authors found that on a broader level, female business angels display a tendency towards conditional homosociality, but minimal heterosocial or homosocial tendencies, in their investment decision-making process. The implications of this study emphasize the importance of gaining a greater understanding of how gender plays a role in business angels' decision to invest, to potentially better understand the gap in funding between female and male entrepreneurs. / Affärsänglar utgör en alltmer viktig källa till kapital för entreprenörer vars företag befinner sig i tidiga skeden. Tidigare forskning och rapporter, å andra sidan, konstaterar att kvinnliga entreprenörer är kraftigt underfinansierade. Med ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt ämnar denna uppsats utforska hur kön spelar in i kvinnliga affärsänglars beslut att investera, detta genom att utgå från ett perspektiv av homosocial teori vid analysering av resultaten från de nio genomförda intervjuerna med kvinnliga affärsänglar. Genom att analysera denna studies empiri har författarna funnit att kvinnliga affärsänglar, på en mer generell nivå, uppvisar tendenser förenade med “conditional homosocialitet”. Däremot uppvisas minimala nivåer av homo- och heterosociala tendenser i affärsänglarnas beslutsfattande process. Studiens implikationer belyser vikten av att uppnå en större förståelse för hur kön spelar in i affärsänglars beslut att investera, och på så vis få större insikter i finansieringsgapet mellan manliga och kvinnliga entreprenörer.

This thesis explores the rapidly growing phenomenon of equity crowdfunding from the perspective of professional investors. The aim was to contribute to the relatively thin aca-demic field of equity crowdfunding, shedding light on why it is yet to be recognized as an important instrument for raising capital and provide suggestions for improvement. The data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with Angel Investors that through their experience could identify benefits and constraints with equity crowd-funding not obvious to the crowd. Benefits of using equity crowdfunding platforms were outweighed by the identified constraints such as corporate governance issues, uncertainties concerning laws and regulations, high risk, and lack of intellectual capital. This eventually led to suggestions for improvements that included channelling the crowd investments through a mutual fund, and allowing the crowd to co-invest with Angel Investors to get around the constraints. Conclusively, the Angel Investors were positive towards the underlying ideology of equity crowdfunding of helping more entrepreneurial ventures reaching their full potential by tapping a previously unutilized source of capital, the crowd. However, there is scepticism to how the phenomenon is currently working in practice.

Innovation entrepreneurship is built not only on a quality idea, but also on the availability of start-up capital and management skills of the idea owner. The insufficient finance often limits the success and growth potential of start-ups. When seeking support to individual business plans, allowing for entry of a business angel could be an option. Business angels are private, mostly experienced investors who invest in SMEs with high growth potential not only financial capital, but also business know-how, contacts and management experience. Thesis evaluates possibilities to use venture capital offered by business angels to support innovative start-ups and on several case studies assesses readiness of innovation and business environment from the investors’ point of view.