Venture Capital and Regional Development: The Operation of the Venture Capital Industry in Manchester

Entrepreneurship, Evolution and Geography

“…Providers of venture capital not only provide financial capital, but also knowledge of developing a business (in a particular industry). The provision of financial capital in general is more likely to be bounded to national scales, while the provision of venture capital is often constrained to regions (Gibbs 1991;Zook 2002). The supply of venture capital is not distributed evenly across regions.…”

Rethinking Venture Capital in Economic Geographical Research

“…Moreover, because venture capital firms raise their investment capital from financial institutions such as pensions funds and insurance companies, which are also spatially concentrated in the City of London, it has been demonstrated that money generated in regions beyond the South East become sucked into biased flows of finance that return to the City only to be reinvested as venture capital within a limited geographical radius, thus reinforcing regional inequalities (Martin and Minns 1995; Martin 1999). The spread, and subsequent closure, of ‘branch plant’ venture capital offices during the 1990s in regions outside of the South East to identify mostly merchant investment opportunities, has also been highlighted (Mason and Harrison 2002; Murray and Wright 1996; Gibbs 1991).…”

Small Business Growth in Contrasting Environments

“…On the other hand, a particular segment of the financial capital industry, i.e. venture capital, is unevenly distributed across space and highly concentrated at existing centres of economic activity (Gibbs 1991). Furthermore, it should be added that the know-how and competence at local offices of large financial organizations are limited.…”