"Are women less likely to ask for help financing their businesses? This study investigates whether gender is a factor that impacts the propensity to ask for financing among nascent entrepreneurs. We also investigate if start-up helpers, who do not have an ownership share, have an impact on the likelihood of asking for financing, specifically between men and women. Our findings suggest that being female significantly decreases the probability of asking for financing and the presence of start-up helpers significantly increases the incidence of asking for financing in the nascent stage. In addition, among those who created new firms or were still in the start-up process, the number of start-up helpers exponentially increased the incidence of asking for financing among female founders. We use the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II data, the largest, nationally representative, and longitudinal database on nascent entrepreneurs for the United States."

"The purpose of this spot survey is to identify the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the current generation of Indian social entrepreneurs as seen by those who spend the most time evaluating them-impact investors. By drawing on the opinions of these investors, it is possible to identify the areas in which critical skills and competencies are stronger than expected or are chronically absent, and how to start a substantive conversation on improving the ecosystem for early-stage social businesses. Unlike other reports in the impact investment space, this report looks at both successful deals that got done and deals that fell through. The insights are designed to assist incubators and accelerators in designing curricula for their investees, and to allow impact investors to develop more effective strategies for addressing pipeline challenges."

"This report, designed for international development organizations, governments, and financial institutions, does the following: 1) highlights the key barriers facing women-led small enterprises across the developing world; 2) identifies how hidden gender and ethnic biases impact the growth of women-led businesses; 3) presents the results of a pilot case study in Guatemala inspired by a novel methodology, first applied to mortgage lending in the United States, that seeks to test for bias in bank-lending decisions for small enterprises; and 4) provides recommendations for policymakers and financial institutions on how this methodology can be applied in developing countries."

"Over the past several decades, U.S. venture capital (VC) firms have focused their attention and investment dollars in specialized regional hubs where high-tech entrepreneurship tends to flourish. As a result, "main street" businesses such as retail stores, consumer services, and other non-tech businesses typically find it incredibly difficult to secure equity funding. Yet, in recent years, crowdfunding (CF) has become a viable new source of funding for entrepreneurs. Using a longitudinal assessment of VC and CF at the national, regional, and sector levels in the USA, we demonstrate how the emergence of CF has unlocked new growth opportunities for main street entrepreneurs, particularly those located in underserviced funding regions. Likewise, we expose how CF augments national and regional funding patterns by re-allocating funding to industries that VCs typically do not fund. Lastly, we discuss the practical and theoretical implications of what appears to be a shifting venture funding regime, and shed light on CF's potential role in enhancing the resurgence of main street entrepreneurship across the USA."

"Unlocking the Potential of Frontier Finance assesses key features of frontier finance impact investments and finds significant opportunity for making an impact in this sector. For impact investment in frontier finance to reach its full potential, investors require more clarity around the common features and performance of such transactions and strategies to address the challenges they face in the market. This research seeks to answer these questions by analyzing a database of 40 frontier finance transactions, 10 interviews, and a workshop discussion with 39 investors and other ecosystem players. Specifically, the report includes an overview of the frontier finance investment landscape, presents five in-depth case studies featuring frontier investment vehicles and transactions, and provides recommendations to build the market and overcome common challenges hindering the flow of additional capital into frontier markets."

"Opportunity-driven entrepreneurs generate much of Africa's employment, income and hope for a better future. But how are these companies progressing over time? This question is answered in the VC4Africa 2015 Venture Finance in Africa report.

This report captures the performance of ventures listed on the Venture Capital 4 Africa online platform and highlights the activity of investors' part of the network. As the community continues to grow, it is expected this yearly report will lend insights into what is happening across the larger startup space. The report breaks down insights across 5 indicators: employment, performance, investments, investors and ecosystem."

"This report stems from a point of view shared by Toniic and Shell Foundation: that venture philanthropists and impact investors actively collaborating can increase the amount of impact investment capital into early-stage impact enterprises. The objective of this report is to provide a practical and user-friendly guide primarily for impact investors to encourage them to deploy their investment capital directly or indirectly (via financial intermediaries and funds) into impact enterprises at an earlier stage. In particular, we have targeted individual investors and family offices."

"Fundera's quarterly report, The State of Online Small Business Lending, lets us put all the data we have covering small business eligibility and borrowing trends to good use. The more educated and aware entrepreneurs are, the better decisions they can make when it comes to financing their businesses-we really believe that.

This quarter, we decided to take a closer look at an incredibly important topic: women in the world of small business. When compared to their male counterparts, how eligible are female entrepreneurs for business financing? What sorts of loans do they get, for how much money, and at what rates? Are there substantive differences in categories like credit score, annual revenue, and industry? In short, do women entrepreneurs have a harder time financing their businesses?

Unsurprisingly, the results of our deep dive weren't too encouraging-but we're confident that alternative lending can be a platform for greater equality in the business financing industry. Transparency is just the first of many steps, but it's a vital one."

"This joint article by IFC and McKinsey finds that the unmet needs for credit by all emerging-market micro, small, and medium enterprises is significant, despite the importance of this sector to economic development and job creation. The article, Two Trillion and Counting, offers the first comprehensive assessment of the global credit gap, ranging from $2.1 trillion to $2.5 trillion, and some implications for public and private sector actors as they seek to close that gap."

"The Navigating Impact project was created by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) to help investors select impact strategies and adopt metrics that indicate performance toward their goals. Created in consultation with industry experts, impact investors, and standards setters, the Navigating Impact project provides an on-ramp to setting and streamlining impact strategies."