Access to Capital Markets for Entrepreneurs

One of the hardest problems faced by entrepreneurs is how to finance and give visibility to their company in order for it to grow. Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are highly dependent on self-financing and bank financing. Therefore, they require a favorable environment to be able to meet their financing needs, including access to capital markets. Certain alternatives have been launched in Europe in this regard. In Spain, BME Growth is a market aimed at small-cap companies seeking to expand, with tailor-made regulations designed specifically for them and costs and processes adapted to their characteristics. In addition to access to financing, other advantages of being a public company are increased visibility, continuous valuation, and liquidity of the company’s shares. As a prior step for those companies still not ready to join BME Growth but planning to do so in the next 2–3 years, the Pre-Market Environment (known in Spanish as Entorno Pre Mercado (EpM)) accompanies them along the way and helps them become familiar with the operation of financial markets and to gain access to an ecosystem of investors, experts, entrepreneurs, advisors, and financial market professionals. In this chapter, after contextualizing the securities markets for SMEs in Europe, BME Growth for the Spanish case is analyzed in detail: its creation, main characteristics and advantages, requirements for incorporation and permanence, costs, characteristics of listed companies, and success stories of the market. Next, the EpM is defined and analyzed as a step prior to going public in BME Growth. The chapter concludes with the details of a success story, Soluciones Cuatroochenta, a company that first joined the EpM and then moved to BME Growth.