A Note on Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures in Developing Economies

By Steve Ciesinski, Howard Rosen, Jason Luther, Steven Truong
2020 | Case No. E723 | Length 26 pgs.
In recent years the world has witnessed a growing wave of entrepreneurial ventures in developing economies. CB Insights reports as of March 2020, developing economies have produced 160 unicorns, equivalent to 35 percent of all unicorns in the world. Much of the success of these unicorns can be attributed to entrepreneurs having increasing access to financing. Our study, however, found that access to financing varied significantly across developing economies and remained as a key challenge for entrepreneurs in most of those economies. Differences in legal structures, operating conditions, talent pools, and available capital sources created myriad conditions for entrepreneurs to navigate when seeking funding to build and scale their ventures.

Learning Objective

This study is built upon A Note on Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures in Developing Economies published by Jason Luther, Steve Ciesinski, and Howard Rosen in 2014. It is meant to provide entrepreneurs with the latest update on financing promising ventures in developing economies. The study, however, does not seek to provide a “one size fits all” model to address the access to financing challenge. Rather, it is intended to help entrepreneurs better understand the types of financing available in developing economies, the sources of this capital and the means to locate investors. Entrepreneurs can use the examples in this note as a springboard to craft solutions for the challenges posed by their specific financing environments.
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