The pursuit of venture capital : Enlightening an entrepreneur on the process of approaching investors

Studies show that Sweden is a prominent country when it comes to innovations, R&D and patents. These efforts have however not led to commercialization and generation of new businesses, which has led researchers to suspect that many entrepreneurs have defective knowledge regarding how the venture capital industry works and how to operate in order to be successful. The fact that there appears to be a knowledge gap and that receiving funds from investors are important for the growth of entrepreneurial companies and the economy as a whole has awakened our interest to focus our study on this issue. In order to get an insight into which questions an entrepreneur raise before seeking venture capital our study takes its starting point with an entrepreneur who is in the process of seeking venture capital. The different topics presented by the entrepreneur led us to the purpose of the thesis, which is to provide guidance for an entrepreneur in pursuit of venture capital through describing and interpreting how investors assess criteria in potential investments. To gain a greater understanding of what aspects a venture capitalist takes into consideration when evaluating a potential deal we found it necessary to have a personal dialogue with the selected respondents. This resulted in our decision to use a qualitative methodological approach and through a target-oriented selection the entrepreneur and the seven investors were selected. Our empirical study is based on interviews with the selected respondents. The empirical findings and the analysis are compiled together in one chapter. The respondents’ opinions are analyzed together in order to create an overview and to make it possible for the reader to better grasp our findings. The study has resulted in a number of suggestions that are presented in a “hand book-like” manner aimed to help the entrepreneur in the pursuit of venture capital and hopefully other entrepreneurs in similar situations. The concluding remarks are presented in chapter 5