Venture capital investment and SMEs growth. Venture capital capitalists’ role and value-added in small & medium sized enterprises

      Аннотация: Purpose Venture capital (VC) has been progressively accepted globally as a central driver for the success and growth of the early-stage firms. This paper empirically examines the Venture Capitalists’ (VCs) role and value addition to small & medium sized enterprises. We adopted a mixed-method approach and used self-administered survey questionnaires, which were sent to 68 VC experts stratified from four districts in Uganda. Quantitative data was evaluated using a multiple regression model and other inferential tests, with results being generated using SPSS. Sixteen semi-structured interviews were performed to supplement the numerical data and ATLAS-ti was used for data analysis of the results. The results uncover that the VCs’ role in SMEs' vehemently underwrites value addition which was predictable in sales turnover, market expansion, increased returns and broad networks for future funding opportunities. These results may support the entrepreneurs/government to engage in lucrative partnerships with VCs who are experienced in detecting the SMEs financial risks at an early-stage and closing the financing gap.

Ключевые слова: venture capital, investment, Small-Medium enterprises growth, value-additiion