Equity and Quasi Equity

Washington, D.C. May 21, 2019 –  PME Investimentos became the newest member of the SME Finance Forum, a global membership network that brings together financial institutions, technology companies, and development finance institutions to share knowledge, spur innovation, and promote the growth of SMEs.  

This paper focuses on key aspects of sustainable PE/VC market development and deployment.3 It discusses (1) why sustainable PE/VC is a useful tool to catalyze other types of capital to achieve sustainability objectives, (2) best practices and lessons learned from the experiences of knowledge partners, (3) the main barriers to further developing the sustainable PE/VC market, and (4) options for countries to voluntarily consider or adopt to overcome these barriers.

A new study seen exclusively by Yahoo Finance UK shows how difficult it is for women in Britain, compared to men, to start their own business.

Yahoo says, men are three times more likely than women to have over £250,000 ($320,479) of investible assets – essential capital for getting a business started – according to private equity house IW Capital. Their 2018 Women’s Entrepreneurship Index has also shown how men are 52% more likely than women to have more start-up capital than their parents.

Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs 2018 contributes to filling the knowledge gap in SME finance trends and conditions. This annual OECD publication provides information on debt, equity, asset-based finance, and conditions for SME and entrepreneurship finance, complemented by an overview of recent policy measures to support access to finance. By providing a solid evidence base, the report supports governments in their actions to foster SME access to finance and encourages a culture of policy evaluation.

Since the start of 2006, three venture capital firms—500 Startups, NEA and Golden Seeds—have closed more than 100 deals apiece backing female-founded companies in the US. Twenty-five investors have closed more than 50 deals each.

As a follow-up to PitchBook's recent content on women in VC, including their interactive map of investment in female-founded companies and articles on whether female founders get better results and closing the gender funding gap, they have highlighted the investors who have most actively funded companies with at least one woman founder.

Incofin Investment Management, a Belgian fund management company, and the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), a public-private development bank founded in 1970, recently signed the fourth capacity development agreement stemming from their partnership that was launched in 2008 to strengthen a total of 14 microfinance institutions (MFIs) worldwide.

Majority women-owned firms, where 51 percent or more of the business is owned by women, are an important segment of U.S. businesses. Since 2007, women-owned firms in the United States, both the self-employed and firms with employees (“employer firms”), have been growing—in number and as a share of all U.S. firms. As of 2015, women-owned firms totaled over one million and accounted for one-fifth of U.S. firms. Among women-owned employer firms, jobs and annual receipts have grown since 2012.

The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), jointly created a survey with the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets a survey to compare how approaches to SME boards have varied across countries. The evidence-based research compiled data such as:

The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), the first World Bank-led facility to advance women’s entrepreneurship at this scale, will work to enable more than $1 billion of financing to improve access to capital, provide technical assistance, and invest in other projects and programs that support women and women-led SMEs in World Bank Group client countries. The announcement was made at the G20 leaders’ summit.