Independence
Internationalizing the Small and Medium Sized Firm – four cases
As mentioned in previous chapters, young SME’s must in most cases find the financing for their internationalization process externally. This was the case for Avanza, Glocalnet and Projectplace whereas Edgecom managed their internationalization without any additional funding. The need for capital is, of course, very individual. The type of industry that the company is operating in decides a lot about how much that has to be raised for the internationalization process. For example, in the case of pure B2C companies like Avanza and Glocalnet this normally means that significant investments in marketing are necessary. In all of the studied companies that used external capital, a significant part of the capital invested was meant to cover costs of internationalizing the company. Just as the study performed by Falk and Reimfelt (2002), this study shows that the venture capitalists have played an important role in the international process. In all cases the companies have experienced a pressure or at least a perceived pressure from the venture capitalist to internationalize. This pressure is according to the authors one of the main drivers behind the focus on speed and aggressiveness that are discussed in more detail below.
