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Print article EBAN
Helping business
spread its wings
Claire Munck explains how business angel networks can help European start-ups get off the ground
 EBAN — Making start-up plans reality |
EURADA is the European Association of Development Agencies, a network of some 145 regional development agencies operating in more than 25 countries.
Since 1995, EURADA has been involved in the promotion of business angels and business angel networks across Europe through the promotion of seminars, publications, and lobby actions towards the EU administration. In 1999, EURADA formally created EBAN — the European Association of Business Angel Networks — which today is the voice of the informal venture capital market in Europe.
As in the USA, business angels (BA) have been active for many years in Europe. Business angel networks are a more recent concept. Indeed, while in the mid-90’s only 50 BANs operated in Europe, and most of them in the UK, today there are over 200 networks offering services to entrepreneurs and investors. Most of these networks operate in the EU15, although there have been some intensive efforts recently to create an environment favourable to business angels in Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, and others. On 10 and 11 April 2006, EBAN held its Sixth Annual Congress in Prague. This is an illustration of the interest shown by new member states in entrepreneurship and venture capital.
Even if it is difficult to provide statistics on the importance of the angel market due to the nature of the industry, it is worth mentioning that in 2004 EBAN members and networks having answered to an EBAN survey have been able to provide the following figures:
- Number of angels active in the networks: 12,773;
- Number of projects submitted: 9,471;
- Number of deals done: 580;
- Number of networks (mid-2005): 228;
- Number of commercial BANs: 35.
Most of the deals were done in France, the UK, Belgium, and Spain.
 Eastern Europe has a real appetite for venture capital |
EBAN concentrates its activities on the following:
- Organisation of events, including its annual congress and a winter university;
- Lobbying the EU administration for better framework conditions for informal venture capital;
- Publishing information on the industry: statistics, directory of networks, newsletters, position papers, white papers, etc;
- Disseminating new practices helping BANs to become more efficient. In recent years, the emphasis has been on tools such as investment readiness, business angel academies, and co-investment funds. Those tools are improving both the demand and supply side of the informal venture capital market;
- Exchange of practices in the field of public support to networks. Networks are often providing services which cannot be commercially charged either to angels (they prefer to invest in start-ups rather than in market infrastructure) or to entrepreneurs (they are looking for funding to start their new businesses).
Business angel networks are often at the regional level and sometimes even at the national level the unique matching platform between entrepreneurs seeking early stage capital and investors. In order to foster this matching, networks provide the following services:
- Identification of potential business angels;
- Matching database;
- Business plan evaluation;
- Advertisement and awareness actions;
- Mentoring;
- Legal support;
- Match-making events;
- Investment readiness programmes;
- Co-investment fund appraisal;
- Publications (bulletins, magazines, newsletters …);
- Training both for entrepreneurs and angels;
- Provision of advice on topics such as exit routes, due diligence, shareholders’ pact…
Currently EBAN has 49 members located in 20 countries. The number of members is growing steadily each year.
In the framework of its next congress, EBAN will collect many good practices from its membership and other networks in order to distribute awards for the following achievements:
- Network that has achieved the most promising exit;
- Network that has initiated the best benchmarking/research work;
- Network that has introduced the best new tools/innovation/ best practices in its network;
- Network that has created the best co-investment initiative (VCs/Bas).
To learn more about EURADA
and EBAN,
please contact:
Christian Saublens,
E-mail: christian.saublens@eurada.org or
Claire Munck,
E-mail: info@eban.org -
Website: www.eban.org