The role of Business Angels within the Italian entrepreneurial ecosystem

The objective of the thesis is to analyze and understand the role of Business Angels within the Italian entrepreneurial ecosystem: we investigated their characteristics and investment patterns, how and to what extent they measure financial and impact risk, what type of post-investment services do they offer, and how the answer to those questions change in the case of impact investing. We investigated the phenomenon in Italy. To do so, we had to thoroughly map the population of Business Angels in Italy, building a database with demographic, educational attainment, and employment information of Italian informal investors. Then, through our surveys, we collected enough responses to get a representative sample, thanks also to the partnership with some of the most important Italian Angel Groups. We analyzed the current composition of informal investors in Italy, considering both aggregations of Business Angels (either Angels Groups or Angels Networks) and independent Business Angels. Finally, we presented the outcome of the research: after giving a general overview, higher focus has been placed on the economic activities, investigating differences and similarities between the different ‘types’ of Business Angels.