Business Angels: The Smartest Money for Starters? Plea for a Renewed Policy Focus on Business Angels‪.‬

ABSTRACT This paper develops different ways to stimulate business angel investment. Coping with the second equity gap can mainly happen by stimulating syndication and by setting up co-investment schemes. Investor readiness, corporate orientation, business angel networks, business angel academies and the integrated finance concept can be considered as key concepts in coping with the information asymmetry problem. Stimulating simultaneously these different aspects might be the best way to provide starters and young enterprises with smart money. Given the untapped potential of business angels, government initiatives in the field might realize a high value for public money.