Finance in various forms for smaller businesses has been a preoccupation for the Treasury under chancellor Gordon Brown. Years of initiatives should mean that smaller businesses at various stages of growth can raise funds. Yet, access to capital was cited in all four years of the IC100 index as the biggest barrier to growth by a quarter of companies.
The reasons included lack of information on what is available and where; bureaucracy involved in obtaining funds; and an understandable but potentially limiting reliance on self-finance and straightforward debt.
