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Start up companies with a potential to grow need a certain amount of investment. Wealthy investors like to invest their capital in such businesses with a long-term growth perspective. This capital is known as venture capital and the investors are called venture capitalists.
Venture Capital investment is also referred to risk capital or patient risk capital, as it includes the risk of losing the money if the venture doesn’t succeed and takes medium to long term period for the investments to fructify.
Venture Capital typically comes from institutional investors and high net worth individuals and is pooled together by dedicated investment firms.
Venture Capital is the most suitable option for funding a costly capital source for companies and most for businesses having large up-front capital requirements which have no other cheap alternatives. Software and other intellectual property are generally the most common cases whose value is unproven. That is why; Venture capital funding is most widespread in the fast-growing technology and biotechnology fields.
Features of Venture Capital investments
- High Risk
- Lack of Liquidity
- Long term horizon
- Equity participation and capital gains
- Venture capital investments are made in innovative projects
- Suppliers of venture capital participate in the management of the company
Types of Venture Capital funding
The various types of venture capital are classified as per their applications at various stages of a business. The three principal types of venture capital are early stage financing, expansion financing and acquisition/buyout financing.
The venture capital funding procedure gets complete in six stages of financing corresponding to the periods of a company’s development
- Seed money: Low level financing for proving and fructifying a new idea
- Start-up: New firms needing funds for expenses related with marketingand product development
- First-Round: Manufacturing and early sales funding
- Second-Round: Operational capital given for early stage companies which are selling products, but not returning a profit
- Third-Round: Also known as Mezzanine financing, this is the money for expanding a newly beneficial company
- Fourth-Round: Also calledbridge financing, 4th round is proposed for financing the “going public” process
Advantages of Venture Capital
- They bring wealth and expertise to the company
- Large sum of equity finance can be provided
- The business does not stand the obligation to repay the money
- In addition to capital, it provides valuable information, resources, technical assistance to make a business successful
Disadvantages of Venture Capital
- As the investors become part owners, the autonomy and control of the founder is lost
- It is a lengthy and complex process
- It is an uncertain form of financing
- Benefit from such financing can be realized in long run only
