Angel Investment and Kosovo’s Early-Stage Market: A Promising Opportunity?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether Angel Investment (AI) may serve as a suitable tool for the early-stage market of Kosovo. The activity of the Business Angel (BA) has experienced significant development lately, and moreover, supplementary attention by policymakers all over Europe and beyond. As a result, the BA community in Europe has published the Start-up Investor Manifesto in May 2014 aiming to adopt policies and actions towards the rise of entrepreneurship and innovation through the creation of 1.5 million new jobs in Europe by 2017. In addition, the Manifesto foresees enlargement of cross-border activity of BAs, including the emerging markets lying outside EU borders. Based on its increasing capacity and attention paid to, and on the fact that over 98% of registered Kosovar businesses are micro enterprises, AI may appear an appropriate instrument in advancing country’s early-stage market. Therefore, this paper intends to answer this interrogation by simultaneously studying the scientific arguments as well as best practices regarding AI both in developed and emerging markets. Accordingly it aims to provide a model on how the AI market could be developed in Kosovo.