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Enterprise Capital Fund is a British government financial programme that provides venture capital funding to Start-up companies that is operated by the British Business Bank.
It was established in 2006 by the UK governments Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in the United Kingdom to address a market weakness in the provision of equity finance to UKs small and medium enterprises (SMEs). [1]
Government funding is used alongside private sector funds to establish funds that operate within the "equity gap"; targeting investments of up to £5 million that have the potential to provide a good commercial return. [2]
The first five funds supported under the scheme were launched in 2006-7 following a pathfinder competition. A further three funds were awarded ECF status in 2007.
As of 1 April 2008, responsibility for the management of ECFs along with BIS's other equity funds and the Small Firms Loan Guarantee (SFLG) was transferred to a new body, Capital for Enterprise Limited (CfEL). This change did not change the nature of the funds or their policy objectives.
CfEL was incorporated in March 2007 as a private limited company wholly owned by BIS, [3] and commenced actively trading in April 2008. It was an asset management business specialising in designing and managing support programmes for SME finance. Its position in the SME finance markets provided it with a unique ability to inform and implement Government policy on those markets.
In November 2013, Enterprise Capital Funds came in for scrutiny from the European Commission after several UK government-backed funds were found to be investing in SMEs beyond the guidelines permitted by EU law. One implication was that such businesses could have been forced to hand back millions of pounds to HM Treasury. [4]
On 1 October 2013, CfEL became part of the British Business Bank, which is now responsible for the management of all of CfEL's financial schemes, including ECFs. [5]
As of November 2019, 29 ECFs had been launched.
Funds as of March 2017 [update] were:
The European Investment Fund (EIF), established in 1994, is a financial institution for the provision of finance to SMEs, headquartered in Luxembourg. It is part of the European Investment Bank Group.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the 27 member states. It is the largest multilateral financial institution in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt solutions companies and projects that achieve the policy aims of the European Union through loans, equity and guarantees.
Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. In the field of finance, private equity is offered instead to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the companies. In casual usage, "private equity" can refer to these investment firms, rather than the companies in which they invest.
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and often come from high technology industries such as information technology (IT) or biotechnology.
Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term seed suggests that this is a very early investment, meant to support the business until it can generate cash of its own, or until it is ready for further investments. Seed money options include friends and family funding, seed venture capital funds, angel funding, and crowdfunding.
The Business Development Bank of Canada is a Crown corporation and national development bank wholly owned by the Government of Canada, mandated to help create and develop Canadian businesses through financing, growth and transition capital, venture capital and advisory services, with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm uses its internal reserves to satisfy its necessity for cash, while the term financing is used when the firm acquires capital from external sources.
A private equity fund is a collective investment scheme used for making investments in various equity securities according to one of the investment strategies associated with private equity. Private equity funds are typically limited partnerships with a fixed term of 10 years. At inception, institutional investors make an unfunded commitment to the limited partnership, which is then drawn over the term of the fund. From the investors' point of view, funds can be traditional or asymmetric.
AmBank Group comprises AMMB Holdings Berhad is one of the largest banking groups in Malaysia whose core businesses are retail banking, wholesale banking, Islamic banking, and life and general insurance.
SME finance is the funding of small and medium-sized enterprises, and represents a major function of the general business finance market in which capital for different types of firms are supplied, acquired, and costed or priced. Capital is supplied through the business finance market in the form of bank loans and overdrafts; leasing and hire-purchase arrangements; equity/corporate bond issues; venture capital or private equity; asset-based finance such as factoring and invoice discounting, and government funding in the form of grants or loans.
Grameen Fund is a not-for-profit company in Bangladesh established by Muhammad Yunus to provide risk capital to small and medium enterprises (SME) beyond the scope of Grameen Bank's objectives of providing microcredit to the very poor. Incorporated on 17 January 1994, Grameen Fund started operation in February 1994, inheriting 40 projects of Grameen bank with assets of 391 million Bangladeshi taka investmented in small industries, fisheries and agriculture. Its lending capital is provided by Grameen Bank and other institutions like Calvert Foundation. From the first Calvert Foundation investment, approximately 6,000 permanent jobs have been created or maintained in agriculture, engineering, poultry, dairy, fishery, and handicrafts sectors.
The Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) of the European Commission is meant to improve the competitiveness of European companies facing the challenges of globalization. The programme is mainly aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which will receive support for innovation activities, better access to finance and business support services. It will run from 2007 to 2013.
The Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) is a UK government-guaranteed lending scheme intended to help smaller viable businesses who may be struggling to secure finance, by facilitating bank loans of between £1,000 and £1 million.
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.
SEAF is an international investment management group that provides growth capital and business assistance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging and transition markets underserved by traditional sources of capital.
Suneet Kumar Maheshwari is an infrastructure business evangelisand is the founder and managing partner of Udvik Infrastructure Advisors LLP, a new boutique infrastructure financial services firm set up comprising a group of senior infrastructure and financing evangelists along with another ~25 mid-senior professionals. Till recently he was the group executive vice-president of L&T Financial Services. He was also on the board of L&T Infrastructure Finance Company Limited, L&T Infra Debt Fund, L&T FinCorp, L&T Infra PE. He was the managing director and chief executive of L&T Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd since its inception in 2006 till March 2014, which is now a Rs 25,000 crores asset base company. He has over 34 years of experience in infrastructure finance, investment banking, corporate finance and private equity at management board level.
Capital for Enterprise Limited (CfEL) was a limited company in the United Kingdom owned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). CfEL was responsible for managing BIS's financial schemes, such as venture capital funds and loan guarantees, aimed at helping small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
ThinCats is an alternative lender that provides business loans to mid-sized UK businesses using capital from institutional investors including pension schemes and asset managers. Founded in 2011, ThinCats operates throughout the UK with offices in Birmingham, Manchester and London.
British Business Bank plc (BBB) is a British state-owned economic development bank established by the UK Government. Its aim is to increase the supply of credit to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as providing business advice services. It is structured as a public limited company and is owned by the Department for Business and Trade. The bank has its headquarters in Sheffield.
Venture capital in Poland is a segment of the private equity market that finances early-stage high-risk companies based in Poland, with the potential for fast growth. As of March 2019, there is a total of 130 active VC firms in Poland, including local offices of international VC firms, and VC firms with mainly Polish management teams. Between 2009–2019, these entities have invested locally in over 750 companies, which gives an average of around 9 companies per portfolio. The Polish venture market accounts for 3% of the entire European ecosystem of VC investments, mainly in the digital space.