Competitive frontiers in equity crowdfunding: the role of venture capitalists and business angels in the early-stage financing industry

The issue of the stimulation and funding of young or newly created small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has been largely debated in the recent years by professionals, academia, bankers and policy makers, also considering the capital constraints generated by the still in force economic recession that followed the 2007–8 Global Financial Crisis. For these reasons, it is crucial to shed light over an opaque segment of the capital market industry, very well suited in order to fill the equity gap, whose actors are institutional as well as non institutional investors, such as technology parks, venture Incubators, business Accelerators, academic spin-offs and the recently emerged equity crowdfunding platforms. The chapter provides an insight into the roles these different actors may play in order to investigate whether equity crowdfunding platforms can be challenged or complemented by the early stage financing industry’s actors.