ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a brief picture of the conditions of venture capital supply and demand in Italy. It outlines the characteristics of the market, namely venture capital and technological innovation. The main agent in Europe is the European Venture Capital Association (EVCA), established in Brussels in 1983 and aimed stimulating and co-ordinating the development of venture capital at European level. In Europe, start-up finance, being the riskiest form of venture capital finance, is the most difficult to organise, and accounts for 10–11% of all venture capital investment, on average. Motivations driving participants in EVC will obviously differ from financier to financier. A significant proportion, between 9 and 10%, of funds flowing into the European market comes from overseas investors. In the United State and in most major European countries, closed-end funds are managed mainly by merchant banks or venture-capital firms.
