Stuart Parris

Access to finance for innovators in the UK's environmental sector

Technological innovations are seen as one of the best solutions to mitigate the environmental impacts of economic activity. Yet, the innovative success of firms, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in the environmental sector is dependent on the presence of appropriate external financing to support their innovative activity. In an attempt to understand the circumstances surrounding the financing of 330 UK SMEs from the environmental sector between 2007 and 2010, we investigate the relationship between different types of innovation activity and sources of external finance. We observe a clear division of labour between the three external sources of finance, namely, banks, venture capital and government in terms of the types of innovations they finance. We also identify that finance gap affects environmental SMEs with early-stage and less applied research projects. We discuss the challenges for UK environmental SMEs to engage in innovative activity and call for an increased government action in order to support innovative SMEs with early-stage projects and to instil confidence in the private investors by signalling long-term commitment.

The Patterns of Venture Capital Investment in the UK Bio-Healthcare Sector: The Role of Proximity, Cumulative Learning and Specialisation

This paper focuses on the patterns of venture capital (VC) investment in dedicated biotech firms (DBFs) in the therapeutic and diagnostic sectors (bio-healthcare). We use a database of 655 UK bio-healthcare deals to map the geographical flows of VC investment and measure the co-location of investors and DBFs. Then, using 20 face-to-face interviews with venture capitalists (VCs) and DBF firms in Cambridge and Scotland, we study the strategic motives underlying the co-location of investors and investee companies and reflect on the catalytic role VCs play in context of the Scottish and Cambridge bio-clusters. From the viewpoint of VC-related policies, we find that our study is more in line with arguments stressing the attractive power of ‘investor-ready’ opportunities (Mason and Harrison 2003) than supply-side approaches that take for granted VC presence at the core of high-tech clusters. In line with Avnimelech, Rosiello, and Teubal (2008), we propose that VC policy should be consistent with the wider strategic objectives of innovation and technology policy.