This paper examines if Swedish government funded venture capital has managed to achieve the general goals set out by the government. The basis of the paper is a report published by The Swedish National Audit Office in 2014 and the paper is analysing the picture given in the report. This has been done through four different studies to see in what phases that capital is given, if they act in a complementary way through time, in what region the capital is given and by studying if there is a financial difference in different portfolio companies. This has been done by comparing private and governmental venture capital firms. The result indicates that the government funded venture capital invest less in early stages compared to the private firms. There is no statistical difference when talking about the financial development of the portfolio companies. The government funded venture capital seems to be acting in more region compared to the private and has less investments in the big city areas. The government funded venture capital might act in a complementary way or they might be crowding out the private venture capital-firms. / Uppsatsen undersöker om statligt finansierat venture capital har uppfyllt de generella riktlinjer som satts upp av regeringen. Grunden till uppsatsen ligger i Riksrevisionens rapport från 2014 och analyserar den bild som läggs fram och försöker genom undersökningar och teori diskutera om kritiken är relevant. Detta har gjorts genom fyra olika undersökningar i syfte att se till vilka faser kapitalet skjuts till, om de agerar marknadskompletterande över tiden, vilka regioner kapitalet går till samt hur portföljbolagen presterar rent ekonomiskt över tiden. Detta görs genom en jämförelse mellan de privata och statliga venture capital-aktörerna. Det som resultatet indikerar är att de statliga aktörerna inte investerar i tidigare faser än de privata. Det går inte att statistiskt se en skillnad mellan de privata och statliga aktörerna gällande utvecklingen på de portföljbolag som de äger eller har ägt. De statliga aktörerna verkar gå in i färre storstadsregioner än de privata samt att de väljer att investera i fler regioner generellt. De statliga aktörerna verkar agerar marknadskompletterande över tid, det skulle dock kunna vara så att de tränger ut de privata aktörerna.

Given the importance that entrepreneurship and start-up businesses operating in technology-intensive sectors (biotechnologies, life sciences, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, information & communication technologies, software, etc.) have come to play as part of the processes of economic development and jobs creation, the access of such entrepreneurs and businesses to appropriate levels of corporate finance has become a major focus of policymakers in recent decades. Yet, this gave way to a wide variety of policy models across nation-states and even within nation-states, as levels of government and market actors adapted to those new challenges by refining or transforming pre-existing policies and institutions as well as by crafting new policy tools to address specific needs or interests. This thesis investigates the roots of such policy diversity within countries, offering in-depth accounts of the evolution of Quebec’s and Scotland’s policy strategies in the sector of development capital and sub-sector of venture capital since 1990. As compared to other regions’ or provinces’ in the United Kingdom (such as South East England) or Canada (such as Ontario), Quebec and Scottish regional venture capital ecosystems rely on a high degree of state intervention, either direct (through public investment funds) or indirect (through government-backed, hybrid or tax-advantaged funds). Hence the description of these two regions as “sponsor states,” heavily involved in the strategic backing of innovative businesses. Whereas most of the literature on venture capital has focused on economic variables to explain variations in such public sector involvement across polities however, this thesis seeks to explain policy divergence in Quebec and Scotland through a political and ideological lens. Its main argument is that the development of the venture capital ecosystems in these regions was underpinned by Québécois and Scottish nationalisms, which induced perceived imperatives and ideological preferences for policy autonomy, policy divergence, and state intervention. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis investigates the impacts of political ideas on economic policymaking. More specifically, it is a study into the effects of Québécois and Scottish nationalisms on regional policies in the sector of corporate finance, and subsector of venture capital. The question it was devised to answer is as follows: why is it that Quebec and Scotland developed particularly dynamic regional venture capital ecosystems, in which the state (through public investment funds) or state-backed investors (such as hybrid or tax-advantaged funds) play a leading role as compared with other Canadian or British regions? Through an in-depth process-tracing effort aimed at the uncovering of rationales underpinning major policy initiatives in this sector since 1990 and beyond, this thesis shows that minority nationalism contributed to the development of such ecosystems in key ways, notably by inducing perceived imperatives and preferences for policy autonomy, policy asymmetry, and state intervention.

Given the relative scarcity of capital and the small volume of savings in most African economies at independence, the establishment of stock exchanges and their regulation showed that several countries considered them as strategic financial intermediaries for channelling capital to their national, and even regional, economies. This article examines the Lagos Stock Exchange’s formative years as a political process of Nigeria’s decolonisation and the First Republic. Originally incorporated as a private limited liability company on 15 September 1960, and as the first stock exchange in West Africa and the region’s largest economy, the new financial intermediary defined the relationship between the post-independence state and the growing capital market during a period of considerable political and economic changes. The role of the post-independence state and state-owned enterprises in facilitating the trade on the Lagos Stock Exchange broadens the analytical scope of this investigation to identify the sources of Nigeria’s development finance. While significant efforts were taken to grow private individual participation in the share trade and ownership, the early years of the Lagos Stock Exchange were ultimately marked by the dominance of institutional investors such as state-owned enterprises and private commercial banks.