Evalution of two special programs providing funding from business angels to young innovative companies

The risk capital market in Austria is weak in international comparison, and the lack of risk capital is also regularly pointed out by the European Commission, including the European Innovation Scoreboard published in 2018, where venture capital financing in Austria is identified as an urgent challenge.To address this weakness, Austria has developed a comprehensive promotional portfolio on the part of AWS Austria (Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH) over the years. This includes also funding from Business Angels who invest in young, innovative companies . To promote business angels investment, AWS offers two special programs - the i2 Business Angels service and the AWS Business Angel Fund Programs which were evaluated in 2019. The present evaluations were carried out under the auspices of the WPZ Research GmbH (Economic Policy Center GmbH) together with the ZSI. For this purpose, a comprehensive mix of methods was used, ranging from qualitative interviews, online surveys to econometric analyzes. The results show that both programs are important levers for the further development of the risk capital market in Austria.

Team:

• Mag. Helmut Gassler (on educational leave) (project leader)

Section: Research Policy & Development

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Tags: evaluation