Access to Growth Capital
Bob Juchter van Bergen Quast
CEO - Swiss Chamber of Commerce in The Netherlands | corporate lawyer
Appropriate finance and growth capital are central elements within the scaling journey of a business. Access to finance is consistently one of the top five challenges to scaling, and it is a key indicator of scale-up growth on an international level.
It is important to recognize that there are also wider sectoral and diversity challenges that have been exacerbated by the current economic circumstances. In particular, many businesses that are pre-profit or that have invested heavily in innovation, face liquidity problems due to the economic uncertainty in the market. In a market environment where liquidity is strained, it is important to ensure that highly innovative firms are not forced to close down.?
If scale-ups are unable to access the right finance their growth may stall, or they may look to move their assets, staff and production overseas to find the patient capital that they need. This can destabilize the whole value chain of growth from the seed stage, right the way through to IPO.?
It means also that we must take action to close the growth capital gap across all asset classes (Angel, Venture Debt, Venture Capital), geographies and sectors. That is why the Swiss Chamber of Commerce in The Netherlands refreshed its prior business approach and invested heavily in AI-driven capital-raising software: