This book examines the proliferation of new sources of entrepreneurial finance and how these sources have the potential to make it easier for ventures to raise capital and grow. To date, entrepreneurial finance literature has developed a rich tradition of research on venture capital and angel finance. However, the emergence of ‘new’ sources of finance – such as crowdfunding – and the limited attention paid to ‘traditional’ debt financing and financial bootstrapping offer opportunities to explore, from different points of view and theoretical perspectives, the challenges that ventures face.

The objective of this book is to explore these new and traditional sources of finance; suggest how these phenomena can be better understood conceptually; and guide new ways of understanding the topic in future, especially for researchers. The introduction outlines the new sources of entrepreneurial finance, and in comparing them with more traditional sources, proposes challenges in our conceptual understanding of these new and traditional sources. The subsequent chapters deal with important topics, including looking at the way different funding sources may interact; factors that impede family firms from getting external funding; how best to succeed with equity crowdfunding by looking at pre-selection processes; considering differences in perceptions towards funding sources arising from whether entrepreneurs are native born or immigrants; factors to consider when funding specialized assets in high uncertain sectors such as biotechnology; and the internationalization of business angel activity. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Venture Capital journal.