Informal Venture Capital

Since the 1980s, the informal venture capital industry has been gaining more attention both in academic and industrial circles. The role of angel investing in economic growth and job creation is now well documented, with more emphasis given in recent years to the effectiveness of increasing the supply and demand for risk capital through entrepreneurship stimulation instruments such as business angel networks. In contrast, this paper looks at the informal venture capital industry from a gestalt perspective, where other stimulus instruments such as incubators, industrial estates and clusters are integrated with business angel networks into a single role to be played by the informal venture capital industry in the context of what is referred to here as capitermediation.