ABSTRACT

The onset of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 quickly gave rise to a concern that the resulting economic uncertainty would produce a collapse in angel investing. In view of the critical role that business angels play in financing the start of the entrepreneurial pipeline, a decline in their investment activity would have a negative effect on the ability of entrepreneurs to start and commence the scaling process which, in turn, would compromise an entrepreneur-led economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. This paper draws on two unique data sources on investments made by business angels in Scotland before and since the onset of the pandemic. It shows that business angels continued to invest since the onset of the crisis although their investment activity declined sharply between Q2 and Q3 2020. Investment activity stabilising in Q4 and has significantly increased during 2021 and is now above pre-Covid levels. Angels have increased their emphasis on follow-on investments and in businesses that have raised one or more previous rounds of funding. This highlights a potential problem for entrepreneurs seeking to raise their first round of angel funding that policy-makers need to address.

摘要

2020 年初冠状病毒大流行的爆发迅速引发了人们的担忧，即由此产生的经济不确定性将导致天使投资崩溃。鉴于商业天使在为创业管道的启动融资方面发挥的关键作用，其投资活动的减少将对创业者启动和开始扩展过程的能力产生负面影响，这反过来又会损害企业家主导的经济从冠状病毒大流行中复苏。本文借鉴了苏格兰商业天使在大流行之前和之后的投资的两个独特数据源。它表明，自危机爆发以来，商业天使继续投资，尽管他们的投资活动在 2020 年第二季度至第三季度之间急剧下降。投资活动在第四季度趋于稳定，并在 2021 年显着增加，现在高于 Covid 之前的水平。天使投资人更加重视后续投资以及已经筹集了一轮或多轮融资的企业。这凸显了寻求筹集政策制定者需要解决的第一轮天使资金的企业家的潜在问题。