Financing entrepreneurship in times of crisis: Exploring the impact of COVID 19 on the market for entrepreneurial finance in the United Kingdom
This commentary explores the manner in which the current COVID 19 crisis is affecting key sources of entrepreneurial finance in the United Kingdom. We posit that the unique relational nature of entrepreneurial finance may make it highly susceptible to such a shock owing to the need for face to face interaction between investors and entrepreneurs. The article explores this conjecture by scrutinising a real time data source of equity investments. Our findings suggest that the volume of new equity transactions in the United Kingdom has declined markedly since the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic. It appears that seed finance is the main type of entrepreneurial finance most acutely affected by the crisis, which typically goes to the most nascent entrepreneurial start ups facing the greatest obstacles obtaining finance. Policy makers can utilise these real time data sources to help inform their strategic policy interventions to assist the firms most affected by crisis events.
International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship