ABSTRACT This paper presents a novel analysis of the ‘Fondo Fiduciario Para el Desarrollo de Capital Emprendedor’ (FONDCE) within the broader context of emergence and evolution of the Argentinian venture capital industry. The FONDCE represented a substantive leap in terms of public support for entrepreneurial financing in Argentina. From an evolutionary perspective, the FONDCE directly contributed to the entry and consolidation of new public, private, national, and foreign incubators, accelerators, and venture capital funds. However, the amount of resources was limited, the Argentinian financial instability affected its functioning, and the impact of each of the three funds that made up the FONDCE was uneven. In particular, the resources allocated to finance institutional capabilities were scarce in the case of the Seed Fund, the support to operational costs did not correspond to the crowding-in investments in the Expansion Fund, and different aspects related to bureaucracy and information availability could be improved.

Social ventures hold great promise for addressing complex societal and environmental challenges, with impact investors reportedly willing to back them with over US$1.571 trillion in assets to scale social innovation. Yet, despite this growth, many social ventures struggle to translate ambitious impact commitments into sustained investment relationships, risking the collapse of an already fragile bridge between social innovators and impact-oriented capital. This challenge reflects a deeper coordination problem in impact investing, where ventures and investors operate with different evaluative logics, evidentiary expectations, and temporal horizons. Drawing on a design science approach, this paper develops and tests the impact investment relationship builder , a relational coordination artifact designed to support alignment between social ventures and impact investors over time. The artifact structures interaction across three interdependent domains - impact, accountability, and revenue - and guides actors through staged episodes of relational alignment. Rather than treating investability as a fixed threshold or screening outcome, the artifact frames investment allocation as a generative, relational process through which expectations, evidence, and trust are progressively constructed and reassessed. The study contributes to impact investing, entrepreneurial finance, and design science by advancing a relational understanding of investment allocation under conditions of uncertainty and hybrid value creation. • Introduces a relational coordination artifact to support alignment between social ventures and impact investors • Reframes impact investing as a process of ongoing relational alignment rather than a one-off readiness assessment • Identifies five design principles explaining how investability is progressively constructed under uncertainty • Demonstrates how impact, accountability, and revenue co-evolve across investment relationships • Offers a transferable design science contribution for coordinating hybrid value creation in entrepreneurial finance

Venture capital firms (VCs) play a unique role in fostering the transition to a sustainable society by financing and supporting technology ventures that contribute to long-term societal and environmental goals. However, the sustainability promise of technology ventures is typically not clear at the early stages of development, requiring critical evaluation and continuous monitoring. VCs thus require an approach for sustainability impact assessment to assess and monitor the sustainability impact of technology ventures and guide sustainable investment decisions – even more so in light of emerging regulatory requirements, such as the European Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. Despite this need, limited research exists on sustainability impact assessment in the venture capital context. This study addresses this gap by investigating how VCs can assess the sustainability impact of technology ventures. Employing a design science research approach, we develop and evaluate a novel sustainability impact assessment framework tailored to the unique characteristics of VC investment. The framework adopts a Design Science (DS) approach, combining insights from a systematic literature review with findings from an in-depth qualitative study with VCs. Our contribution is twofold. First, we propose a set of design principles that enable VCs to conceptualize, assess, and monitor the sustainability impact and risks of their portfolio ventures. Second, we develop a framework for developing and validating design principles in highly contextual and emergent domains such as sustainable venture capital. The resulting design principles and framework integrate perspectives from entrepreneurial finance and technology entrepreneurship, aiming to inform both academic discourse and venture capital practice by positioning sustainability impact assessment as a central criterion in investment decision-making and venture support. • Develops and evaluates a novel sustainability impact assessment framework for venture capital firms. • Integrates theoretical insights and empirical evidence through a systematic design science approach. • Provides eight design principles to guide sustainability impact and risk assessment of early-stage technology ventures. • Demonstrates practical applicability through implementation and evaluation in a European VC fund and thereby addresses the growing need for sustainability impact assessment in venture capital under EU SFDR regulations. • Offers actionable guidelines for integrating sustainability into VC investment decision-making and monitoring processes.

We identify that technology crowdfunding campaigns attracting more domestic investors have a higher probability of project success and examine the role of home bias in supporting online innovative entrepreneurial financing. The extent of the home bias effect among technology entrepreneurs varies and is notably linked to their social capital. When a technology entrepreneur has high “old” social capital, the home bias is strengthened and aligned with a preference-based interpretation. In contrast, technology entrepreneurs' excessive capabilities of creating “new” social capital help mitigate the home bias, reduce the dependence on local investors, and promote more diversified investment decisions, which supports an information-based interpretation. Evidence also reveals that technology entrepreneurs’ home country levels of financial inclusion and investor protection influence the link between home bias and crowdfunding outcomes, indicating that the economic benefits generated in fintech are heterogeneous across different countries. • Technology crowdfunding campaigns attracting more domestic investors have a higher probability of project success. • The extent of the home bias effect among technology entrepreneurs varies and is notably linked to their social capital. • The home bias is strengthened when a technology entrepreneur has high “old” social capital. • Technology entrepreneurs' excessive capabilities of creating “new” social capital help mitigate the home bias.

Purpose This paper examines whether debt remains a viable and strategic financing option for entrepreneurs, through a systematic review of the literature on entrepreneurial debt financing. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review was conducted using the PRISMA protocol. Articles were retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science, resulting in 62 peer-reviewed journal publications from 1997 to 2024. Findings The findings highlight the dual nature of debt as both an enabler and a constraint for entrepreneurial ventures. Debt can support growth and ownership retention, but poses significant risks, particularly in environments with uncertainty, institutional weakness or low financial literacy. Financial literacy emerges as a cross-cutting factor. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to journal articles published in English and indexed in two databases, which may omit relevant studies from other sources. Future research could explore sector-specific or regional dynamics in greater depth and expand to alternative forms of entrepreneurial finance. Practical implications Entrepreneurs should align debt financing with their firm's maturity and financial capacity. Policymakers are encouraged to strengthen institutional frameworks and promote access through targeted programs. Improving financial literacy emerges as a key enabler of better financing decisions and debt management. Originality/value To the authors' knowledge, this is the first systematic literature review that explicitly focuses on the role of debt in entrepreneurial finance. By synthesizing empirical and conceptual studies, the paper offers a comprehensive framework and identifies underexplored areas for future research.

Venture capital has grown to be a significant capital force supporting the expansion of start-up businesses in the context of the ongoing expansion of innovation-driven development and the rising demand for entrepreneurial finance. How to conduct a reasonable assessment of high-risk and highly uncertain entrepreneurial projects has also become an important issue in the fields of corporate finance and entrepreneurial finance. This paper conducts a literature review focusing on the applicability of the WACC-NPV framework in the assessment of venture projects, with a particular emphasis on analyzing its theoretical basis, applicable boundaries, and alternative methods. The study employs the literature review method and comparative analysis method, systematically organizing relevant English literature mainly from ScienceDirect. The research finds that the WACC-NPV framework still holds significant theoretical significance, providing a basic logic for understanding the relationship between project value, capital cost, and investment return. However, in venture investment practices, due to difficulties in estimating the discount rate, unstable cash flow predictions, and significant impacts from exit mechanisms and contractual terms, it is difficult to use it as an independent operational tool for valuing entrepreneurial enterprises. As a result, it is better to evaluate venture projects using a thorough assessment based on the WACC-NPV framework in conjunction with techniques like scenario analysis, the Venture Capital Method, and the Relative Valuation Method.

Purpose This multi-study paper investigates how entrepreneurial financing practices and news media narratives shape entrepreneurial resourcefulness and productive entrepreneurship within Rwanda's orchestrated entrepreneurial ecosystem. Design/methodology/approach Study 1 examines survey data of entrepreneurial financing, while Study 2 assesses news media narratives via quantitative linguistic analysis. Findings Local entrepreneurs demonstrate resourcefulness by preferring informal finance, thus enabling Baumolian productive entrepreneurship (Study 1). Conversely, elite neoliberal narratives articulated by news media promoted top-down globalization rhetoric, potentially enabling unproductive entrepreneurship (rent-seeking) and contradicting grassroots practices in the Rwandan entrepreneurial ecosystem (Study 2). Originality/value The study advances understanding of how entrepreneurial finance, news media, and entrepreneurial resourcefulness co-constitute (productive) entrepreneurship in African entrepreneurial ecosystems, with broader implications for entrepreneurial policy and practice.

ABSTRACT Circular start‐ups (CSUs) are critical for unlocking the circular economy, yet they face persistent barriers in accessing finance. Despite growing interest from policymakers and financing institutions, little empirical evidence explains how these ventures pursue and secure funding. This is the first academic empirical study analysing how CSUs navigate and combine different funding sources. Based on semistructured interviews, supported by survey responses and firm‐level data from 32 early‐stage CSUs in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France, we explore how CSUs navigate and combine different funding sources over time. Our findings reveal three stylised funding pathways—fast, steady and tenacious—that shaped the interaction between funding amount and start‐up age. While business model type influences funding needs, our findings show that market‐fit and founder characteristics emerge as decisive factors determining funding success. Most CSUs rely on grants, subsidies and personal funds, while private and social impact investors remain scarce. The study contributes primarily to the circular economy literature, while also advancing the fields of sustainable entrepreneurial finance and circular entrepreneurship, offering practical insights to strengthen CSUs' growth.

Purpose: This study aims to analyze how financial literacy and financial inclusion influence financing decisions among women-owned MSMEs in Indonesia, with financial and nonfinancial performance acting as moderating variables. Methodology/approach: A quantitative explanatory approach was employed using survey data from 345 female entrepreneurs operating MSMEs on Java Island. Data were collected through structured questionnaires with validated measurement scales and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling with Partial Least Squares. Results: Financial literacy and financial inclusion significantly enhance financing decision-making among women entrepreneurs. Financial performance strengthens the relationship between financial capability, access, and funding choices, indicating that better financial conditions improve the effectiveness of financing strategies. Non-financial performance directly influences financing decisions and partially moderates the effect of financial literacy, suggesting that managerial capability and organizational readiness play important roles in funding behavior of investors. Conclusions: Financing decisions among female-entrepreneur-owned MSMEs are shaped by the interaction between financial knowledge, institutional access, and organizational performance. Limitations: This study focuses on women-owned MSMEs on Java Island and relies on self-reported survey data. Contributions: This study extends the contingency-based financial behavior perspective and offers practical insights for developing inclusive financing programs for women entrepreneurs.

Women micro-entrepreneurs play a crucial role in strengthening local economies; however, the sustainability of their enterprises largely depends on effective financial planning. This study examines the determinants of Financial Planning Intention (FPI) among women micro-entrepreneurs by applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). Specifically, it investigates the influence of Attitude towards Financial Planning (AFP), Perceived Behavioural Control (PBC), and Perceived Constraints (PC) on financial planning intention and its subsequent effect on investment behaviour. Using a quantitative research design, data were collected through a cross-sectional survey and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that both PBC and AFP exert a strong and statistically significant influence on FPI, whereas perceived constraints do not show a meaningful effect. These findings suggest that financial planning among women micro-entrepreneurs is driven more by internal capabilities, confidence, and awareness than by external barriers. The study extends TPB by highlighting the role of resilience and self-efficacy in entrepreneurial finance and offers practical insights for policymakers, financial institutions, and development agencies aiming to strengthen women’s financial decision-making capacity.

Words carry connotations: signaling warmth or ambition, care or confidence, which consequently shapes how crowdfunding pitches are perceived. Building on debates about bias in entrepreneurial finance, the paper examines the interplay of gendered language and founder gender in reward-based crowdfunding. A dataset of 671 technology-based reward crowdfunding projects provides the empirical basis. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software is used to quantify communal (feminine) and agentic (masculine) expressions in campaign texts. Logistic and linear regression models assess their associations with funding access and depth of funding, while the founder’s gender serves as a moderating variable. The results reveal that communal language is generally associated with lower probabilities of funding access and lower depth of funding. However, for female-led campaigns, communal language is related to a reversal of the previously negative relationship with funding access probability, while the disadvantage in depth of funding; i.e., lower amounts pledged, persists. In contrast, the use of agentic language by women remains related to lower probabilities of funding access and lower depth of funding in technology-oriented crowdfunding campaigns. This paper extends crowdfunding research by highlighting how language interacts with founder gender in shaping performance. It also applies role congruity theory to an online entrepreneurial finance context, showing that the alignment or misalignment between linguistic style and gender expectations influences funding outcomes. The insights are relevant for scholars examining bias in entrepreneurial contexts, as well as practitioners crafting campaign narratives. The evidence underscores the role of language-based stereotypes in shaping perceptions of female founders and the need for greater awareness of such biases on crowdfunding platforms.

India's start-up ecosystem has traversed a remarkable journey over the past decade, evolving from fewer than 500 recognised startups in 2016 to over 2,00,000 today, raising approximately $151 billion across more than 25,000 funding rounds and producing 118 unicorns. This extraordinary expansion has been underpinned by a sophisticated architecture of public–private partnerships (PPPs) that channel government resources through private investment vehicles, blending state support with market discipline. This paper examines the role of PPPs in strengthening India's entrepreneurial finance ecosystem, with particular focus on the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) framework and emerging collaborative models. The analysis reveals that the first iteration of the FFS, launched in 2016, committed ₹100 billion to 145 private funds, which have invested over ₹255 billion (approximately $2.8 billion) in more than 1,370 startups. Building on this success, the government has recently approved a second $1.1 billion fund targeting deep-tech, manufacturing, and early-stage ventures, while extending the startup definition period to 20 years and raising the revenue threshold for benefits to ₹3 billion. The paper also examines innovative PPP models including Gujarat's Indian AI Research Organisation (IAIRO)—a tripartite collaboration between state government, central government, and the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance with a ₹300 crore corpus over five years. However, the ecosystem faces significant challenges: overall startup funding declined to $10.5 billion in 2025, down 17% from the previous year, with the number of funding rounds falling nearly 39%. Angel investments have contracted sharply—deal count falling 44% to 834 transactions following regulatory changes that raised participation thresholds. Simultaneously, public markets have emerged as a dominant funding channel, with startups raising over ₹44,000 crore ($5.3 billion) from IPOs and follow-on offerings in FY25—more than double the late-stage private capital raised during the same period. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for optimising PPP frameworks, including strengthening domestic institutional participation, addressing regulatory friction in angel investing, deepening exit ecosystems, and leveraging PPP models for strategic sector development.

This study examines valuation challenges and investor influence in sustainable health startups, a sector characterised by regulatory complexity, high capital requirements, and increasing integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. The research addresses the limitations of traditional valuation models in capturing early-stage success indicators and proposes a more nuanced approach. A mixed-methods design was employed, combining a systematic literature review with empirical cluster analysis using a dataset of 923 U.S.-based startups across 35 sectors. The analysis identified five distinct startup archetypes based on investor structure, funding levels, and exit outcomes. Startups with the most diverse investor base — engaging both angel and venture capital (VC) across multiple funding stages — exhibited the highest acquisition success rates (91.8 per cent). Sector-specific analysis revealed that health startups received above-average funding and achieved a 100 per cent acquisition rate, whereas medical startups displayed greater outcome variability. These findings highlight the need for multidimensional, sector-sensitive valuation frameworks that incorporate investor signalling, ESG orientation, and market timing. The findings of this study both support and build upon prior research on startup valuation and success factors. In line with Davila et al. (2003) and Lerner et al. (2018), the clustering analysis demonstrates that investor diversity — especially the combined involvement of angel and VC investors — substantially enhances the likelihood of acquisition. The results are also consistent with Somaya and You (2024) and Adner et al. (2016), underscoring scalability as a central determinant of valuation, particularly in technology-intensive sectors such as software, mobile, and biotechnology, which secured the highest levels of funding. The study offers new insights into the entrepreneurial finance literature and provides practical guidance for investors, founders, and policymakers aiming to scale sustainable innovation in the health sector.

ABSTRACT While crowdfunding offers a promising alternative to funding entrepreneurial endeavors, its nuances remain underexplored in scholarly investigations. This study aimed to assess the feasibility of crowdfunding as an entrepreneurial financing mechanism in Ghana. The study surveyed 927 final-year university students using structured questionnaires and semistructured interviews. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS and Microsoft Excel, while qualitative insights were derived through thematic analysis. Lack of awareness of crowdfunding was found among final-year university students in the study (M = 2.54/6.00). Male respondents were aware of crowdfunding (p = .018) and slightly more concerned about cybersecurity risks (p = .019) than females. From the qualitative standpoint, trust and transparency are barriers to participation. Lack of infrastructure emerged as a major hindrance in engaging with these platforms. Low levels of awareness, recurring issues of trust, and poor digital infrastructures are limiting the prospects of crowdfunding in Ghana.

This qualitative research study explores pre-service teachers’ conceptions of citizenship, personhood, and disability in the context of pre-service teacher education in Punjab, Pakistan. Telephonic interviews were conducted with 12 pre-service teachers pursuing teacher-training in Punjab using the semi-structured life-world interview protocol. TurboScribe was used to perform the translation and transcription, and the subsequent analysis was done in NVivo 15 in the form of meaning condensation and thematic coding. The findings provided three themes: (1) conditional citizenship expressed in the form of deficit discourse; (2) disputed personhood expressed in terms of normative expectations; and (3) pedagogical ambivalence expressed in connection with inclusive education. Most pre-service teachers' dominant themes explained disabled students as objects of care, but not as rights-bearing citizens, thus placing the disability beyond the frame of full community membership. The research thus explains why teacher education reproduces the exclusionary ideas of citizenship, thus urging the high-stakes necessity of transformational pedagogical interventions that acknowledge the personhood and democratic participation of disabled students.

This study aims to map the intellectual structure and research trends in MSME financing through a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications indexed in the Scopus database. Using VOSviewer as the primary analytical tool, this research examines keyword co-occurrence, overlay visualization, density mapping, co-authorship networks, institutional collaboration, and country collaboration patterns to identify dominant themes and emerging research directions. The findings indicate that MSMEs remain the central focus within the financing literature, closely associated with financial inclusion, financial literacy, digital transformation, and entrepreneurial finance. The evolution of research shows a transition from traditional microfinance and banking perspectives toward digitally enabled and innovation-driven financing ecosystems. Density analysis highlights financial inclusion as a highly concentrated research area, while themes such as decentralized finance and risk management appear as emerging opportunities for future studies. Collaboration patterns reveal strong interconnectedness among authors and institutions, with significant contributions from Asian countries, particularly India, China, and the Philippines, reflecting the importance of MSMEs in developing economies. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the development, structure, and future research agenda of MSME financing literature, offering valuable insights for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to strengthen inclusive and sustainable financial systems for MSMEs.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional financing channels, accelerating the adoption of crowdfunding as an alternative capital-raising mechanism across Africa. Limited access to finance for women entrepreneurs remains a pivotal issue globally, particularly in Africa, where most women are significantly underrepresented. This study investigates the role of gender differences in campaign design, communication, and signalling in crowdfunding success during the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than focusing on gender as a direct factor. Guided by signalling, Congruity, Feminist Economics, and Social Network theories, the research investigates whether gender-related differences in campaign presentation and communication strategies contributed to variations in funding outcomes. A quantitative research approach was adopted to analyse reward-based crowdfunding campaigns launched between March 2020 and December 2020. The study measures success through funding attainment ratios and goal achievement rates. The findings reveal nuanced gender effects, with male-led campaigns exhibiting strengths in social engagement and narrative appeal, while female-led campaigns demonstrated advantages in higher average contribution sizes. This awareness contributes to the literature on gender and entrepreneurial finance in crisis contexts, offering practical implications for platform design, policy interventions, and inclusive funding strategies in Africa’s evolving crowdfunding ecosystem. In line with the empirical results, the impact of gender is mostly indirect and mediated by campaign variables such as updates, videos, and engagement intensity.

Crowdlending offers entrepreneurs and lenders a low-barrier alternative to traditional finance but operates under high uncertainty and limited firm-level information, requiring reliance on observable cues. One crucial cue arises when entrepreneurs disclose and explain prior failure. Drawing on attribution theory, we examine how crowd lenders respond to different failure attributions and how this shapes willingness to invest. Using a metric-conjoint experiment in Germany ( N = 78; 2496 observations) and analysing results with linear mixed-effects models, we find that lenders react more positively to internal, controllable, and unstable attributions compared to external, stable, and uncontrollable causes. Moreover, gender differences emerged, with female lenders responding differently from men. By shifting the focus from the self-responses by entrepreneurs to lender evaluations, we extend attribution theory to the crowdlending context and demonstrate how gender shapes the interpretation of failure signals. These insights advance understanding of decision-making in alternative entrepreneurial finance, informing entrepreneurs, lenders, and platform design.

Purpose Information gaps between entrepreneurs and investors often impede the flow of capital into young firms. This study aims to examine how perceived innovation shapes the relationship between information asymmetry and perceived risk and whether this process differs between local and foreign investors. Design/methodology/approach A survey experiment was conducted with 151 investors who evaluated the same startup scenario. Participants rated the venture’s innovativeness and riskiness on seven-point Likert scales and indicated whether they were Israeli (local) or American (foreign). Regression models tested the relationship between perceived innovation and perceived risk and the moderating role of investor origin, while controlling for demographic and experiential variables. Findings Empirical evidence reveals a conditional relationship between perceived innovation, information asymmetry and perceived risk that depends on investor origin. While local investors reported lower overall levels of perceived risk than foreign investors, the moderating role of innovation differed systematically across the two groups, highlighting receiver heterogeneity in signal interpretation. Practical implications Entrepreneurs should emphasize innovation when pitching to local investors and provide stronger evidence and transparency when approaching foreign investors. Policymakers and intermediaries can help reduce cross-border information gaps by promoting transparency, improving information accessibility and fostering networks that enable knowledge exchange. Originality/value This study empirically demonstrates that the relationship between innovation and perceived risk is conditional on the informational environment of the receiver. By positioning perceived risk as the outcome variable, this research integrates insights from signaling theory and home bias perspectives while highlighting the importance of investor heterogeneity in entrepreneurial finance.

This research paper is an explorative and a systematic review study to ascertain the impact of Crowdfunding as an innovative entrepreneurial finance on Nigerian small and medium-sized Businesses funding gap. This study employed secondary sources of data and conducted a systematic review of research articles from several international and reputable journals using JSTOR, Google Scholar, PubMed, and the Research Gate database of all related topics. This study confirmed a direct connection between Crowdfunding and the entrepreneurial funding gaps of SMEs in Nigeria. By democratizing access to finance and empowering different entrepreneurs to obtain funding and evaluate their ideas, crowdfunding has become a competitive alternative to traditional financing, profoundly changing the landscape of innovation. However, a number of factors, including the nature of the innovation, the caliber of the entrepreneur, and the regulatory framework, affect its efficacy. Potential publication bias and a primary focus on product innovation, which may ignore other forms of innovation like process, service, and social innovation, are among the limitations of this study, which is based on current literature. Variability in campaign results, cultural diversity, and local economic conditions all have an impact on crowdfunding success. The study concludes by confirming that Crowdfunding is a viable innovative entrepreneurial financing option for entrepreneurs. The study revealed that Crowdfunding has the potency to fill in the funding gaps being experienced by entrepreneurs of small and medium scale businesses in Nigeria. The study made some legislative recommendations in order to optimize crowdfunding's ability to promote innovation. Governments ought to think about putting in place supportive regulatory frameworks that strike a balance between the flexibility required for creative crowdfunding models and investor protection.