Studying Issues and Problems of Financing Knowledge Based Enterprises

The paper explores the process of early growth of entrepreneurial sciencebased firms. Drawing on casestudies of British and Dutch biopharmaceutical R D firms, we conceptualize the speed of early growth of sciencebased firms as the time it takes for the assembly (or combined development) of three types of critical resources—a functionallydiverse management team, early fundraising and development of technology. The development of these resources is an unfolding and interrelated process, the causaldirection of which is highly ambiguous. We show the variety of paths used by sciencebased firms toaccess and develop these critical resources. The picture that emerges is that the various combinations of what we call “assisted” and “unassisted” paths combine to influence the speed of firm growth. We show how a wide range of manifestations of technology development act as signaling devices to attract funding and management, affecting the speed of firm development. We also show how the variety of paths andthe speed of development are influenced by the national institutional setting.