The informal venture capital market in Norway - investor characteristics, behaviour and preferences

There is widespread recognition in Norway that the reliance of SMEs on debt financingmust be reduced while equity finance sources need to be increased. Therehas been little knowledge about the informal venture capital market inNorway until recently. The findings reported in this paper are based on a large survey comprising6,618 persons. Out of all the respondents, 425 are classified as informalinvestors and comprise the data material that this paper is based upon.This paper describes the Norwegian informal investors in terms of their demographics,investment activity, behaviour and investment preferences. A comparison ismade between the results from the Norwegian survey and findings from the UKand Sweden.