Purpose -New venture support networks (NVSN) are an instrument of enterprise policy with the aim of effectively coordinating the activities of different organisations involved in new venture support. This paper aims to illuminate the role of certain key actors in facilitating and maintaining cooperation in such networks, which are characterised by a heterogeneous actor structure and a lack of a network culture due to having been established by political initiative. Design/methodology/approach -This paper discusses case studies in five German NVSN, which are all part of the governmental initiative "EXIST -Entrepreneurs from Universities", established in 1998.Findings -Identifies three general functions for key actors: generating benefits for the member organisations from without and within the network; communicating these benefits to the member organisations; and maintaining a balance between the heterogeneous interests of the network partners.Research limitations/implications -The study identifies the roles that key actors perform in the EXIST networks, but it does not show any causal relation as to the actual success of the key actors. Practical implications -The results can be applied in planning and managing enterprise policy and other projects involving inter-organisational cooperation with a heterogeneous range of actors. Originality/value -This is the first examination of the role of key actors in the context of NVSN, which are themselves a recent phenomenon and a novel concept in academic literature.

Th e primary concern of this paper is to develop a model of the costs of capital for the specifi c context of start-up and small business fi nancing. Th ere is an exigent need for such a platform for further discussion of the fi nancing costs of new and small fi rms because their fi nancing conditions diff er from the fi nancing of large, established corporations. Th e main diff erence is the dependence of the former on bank loans in their eff orts to raise debt while the latter have direct access to the bond market. Th e relevance of banks as fi nancial intermediaries with their own business risks has become ever more palpable during the 2008-2009 banking crisis in which banks have faced liquidity struggles as well as concerns about their willingness to lend to business and industry at reasonable fi nancing costs. For empirical evidence on the tightening of credit conditions for new and small businesses, a recent OECD survey on the impact of the fi nancial crisis (OECD, 2009) reports that many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at the beginning of 2009 appear to: • suff er from declining levels of available liquidity due to extended payment delays on receivables and growing inventories and, at the same time, • face diffi culties in obtaining aff ordable bank credit (credit spreads on small commercial bank loans have increased by more than 100 basis points by the end of 2008 as compared to 2007 according to ECB data; weakly-capitalized banks tend Specific institutional conditions of the start-up situation lead us to abandon the Modigliani-Miller irrelevance proposition. A much-needed formal model of the cost of capital specific to new ventures is developed as a platform for discussion of the cost of capital of new and small firms in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 banking crisis. A formal model of the cost of capital specific to new ventures can be used as a platform for discussion on entrepreneurial finance in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 banking crisis.Keywords: entrepreneurial fi nance, SME fi nance, Modigliani-Miller Th eorem, cost of capital, capital structure, bank loans, non-traded debt, fi nancial crisis 1 JEL classifi cation codes: G30, G32, M13.

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