Acquiring the necessary funding from discerning investors and lenders is regarded as a notorious problem for new ventures in Germany. Entrepreneurs’ deciding to adjust capital requirements or terminate the fund-raising struggle altogether affect the sustainable growth of new ventures. Yet, entrepreneurship research knows relatively little about the actual course of entrepreneurs’ fund-raising attempts during the start-up process.

Marc Grünhagen examines the evolution of fund-raising struggles in eleven in-depth case studies of seed and early stage ventures. In particular, the book zooms in on potential influence factors triggering changes in entrepreneurs’ fund-raising intentions over time. The empirical analysis offers a novel model of task-specific entrepreneurial intentions and their cognitive antecedents in the context of investors’ demands for new venture legitimacy. The findings suggest two core recommendations for supporting growth-oriented fund-raising processes: a) to build legitimizing potential and b) to ensure sufficient financial scope for flexible adaptations throughout the financing struggle.

Dr. Marc Grünhagen ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter von Prof. Dr. Lambert T. Koch am Lehrstuhl für Unternehmensgründung und Wirtschaftsentwicklung an der Universität Wuppertal.