Despite the sometimes intensive media coverage and exuberant storytelling around the industry, venture capital (VC) investors tend to operate in highly opaque markets. On this premise, this work contributes to the literature via a hand-collected dataset of about 3,600 EIF-backed VC investments...

This analysis provides an overview of the main markets relevant to the EIF. It starts by discussing the general market environment, then looks at the main aspects of equity finance and the guarantee and SME securitisation markets. It also highlights important aspects of microfinance in Europe....

This EIF Working Paper elaborates on the most recent update2 of the EIF SME Access to Finance (ESAF) Index, a composite indicator that monitors SME external financing markets in the 28 EU countries. The ESAF was developed by EIF in collaboration with the London School of Economics. The 2018 ESAF...

This working paper provides an overview of the main markets relevant to the EIF. It starts by discussing the general market environment, then looks at the main aspects of equity finance and the markets for SME debt products, and, finally, it highlights important aspects of microfinance in...

This paper provides a pan-European assessment of EU credit guarantees to SMEs. Synthesizing past research, it investigates the firm-level economic impact of over 360,000 guaranteed loans under the EU MAP and CIP programmes from 2002 to 2016. These loans represented a total amount of EUR 22bn...