Data retrieval from online social media networks for defining business angels’ profile

Gustavo Morales-Alonso, Guzmán A. Vila, Isaac Lemus-Aguilar and Antonio Hidalgo

Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, 2020, vol. 14, issue 1, 57-75

Abstract: Purpose - Entrepreneurship is the basis of economic development but is somehow limited by the lack of access to financing sources, especially in the crucial moments of start-up early-stage development. For crossing the so-called “valley of death,” start-ups need to access informal finance sources, such as business angels. This study aims at defining the profile of business angels and comparing it with the existing literature. Design/methodology/approach - A novel methodology for sampling the business angles population has been used, which extracts data from online social media networks. This allows taking a closer look at informal sources of entrepreneurial finance. A total of 500 real business angels, acting worldwide, from the LinkedIn and Crunchbase databases has been retrieved for this study. Findings - Results point out that younger investors seem to be entering the entrepreneurial informal finance market. They are mainly males between 40 and 50 years of age, with a previous entrepreneurial record, and more highly educated than previously stated. They tend to have studies from Business Administration and Economics, although they prefer to invest in the ICT sector. Originality/value - Besides the novel data retrieval technique for analyzing the informal sources of finance, the originality of the work lies in updating the archetype for business angels.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; LinkedIn; Entrepreneurial finance; Social media presence; Informal sources of finance; Crunchbase (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jecpps:jec-10-2019-0095

DOI: 10.1108/JEC-10-2019-0095

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