UK VENTURE CAPITAL FUNDS AND THE FUNDING OF NEW TECHNOLOGY-BASED BUSINESSES: PROCESS AND RELATIONSHIPS*

Through the 1980s the UK venture capital industry, with its perceived focus on risky and innovative businesses, has experienced substantial growth in terms of the number of funds, amounts invested and number of individual investments. In this article, the Tyebjee and Bruno (1984) venture capital deal creation model which was originated in the US has been used to explore the process of venture capital provision and the development of relationships between venture capital funds and operating business managements. An empirical study of how UK-based venture capital funds operate has been undertaken. The findings generally corroborated the model in a UK context. It was also observed that while venture capitalists actively worked to nurture good relationships with operating business managements they were prepared to act decisively and proactively to protect their investments when they saw them being threatened fundamentally. There vas also some evidence which suggested a slackening of interest in innovative, technology-based businesses, particularly those in their early stages of development. Further work is needed to identify if there are conceptual problems with the provision of venture capital to these types of businesses or implementation problems which are tractable.