Condicionantes de la restricción al crédito bancario en el segmento start-up

Abstract

The paper aims to shed new light on start-up financing and the existence of credit constraints that may negatively affect their activity. The absence of a previous track record a lack of collateral, or higher risk, maximise information asymmetries in the financial markets. Although Venture Capital (VC) best suits the specific particularities of these projects, VC markets in Europe are actually underdeveloped, so that banks constitute by far the most important source of outside financing to start-ups. However, traditional collateral-based lending proves inadequate in start-up stages, lacking professionals and risk assessment mechanisms adapted to the nature of these ventures. From a sample of more than 800 start-ups in Spain, this work seeks to establish whether the tightening of bank lending is associated with aspects to do with certain firm-level characteristics or with the competitive profile of the founder team. The results obtained demonstrate that the entrepreneur's income level represents the variable that most explains access to credit. In contrast, New Technology-Based Firms or companies devoted to exports are particularly subject to bank credit constraint.