Listing your business on a stock market can be the ultimate high for many an entrepreneur. This can represent an accolade of sorts, the embodiment of having worked tirelessly for many years in building a business. A public listing raises your business profile and exposes your business to an unlimited number of potential investors, which makes it considerably easier to raise growth capital.

Your clients and business suppliers are possibly the most convenient source of funding for your business. Convenient because you have a working relationship with them, your duty is to negotiate the terms of such working relationship to suit the circumstances of your business. For example, asking your clients to pay you an upfront deposit can help you finance a component of all the costs associated with delivering the service to them. Think about a catering company that charges a couple a 50% deposit two weeks prior to the matrimonial date and a 50% balance on the day before. In...

Angel Investors are private investors who have excess funds and are seeking great investment opportunities. There are no real formal networks of angel investors in South Africa. The closest you’ll get is the Investment Network, a company which specialises in linking entrepreneurs with a business funding deficit to angel investors with a funding surplus. Angel Investors invest in businesses they like, run by people with whom they can identify and doing exactly what resonates with them. The matching process is quite clandestine and requires you to network the right places and identify the right calibre people. Typically, an angel...

Banks are an important source of business funding. They boast the broadest infrastructure of any funding institution with commensurate pockets to boot. Banks are also notoriously risk averse and lack the appetite to finance start-up ventures, unless, of course, you can meet their prohibitive collateral requirements.

VC is more suitable for a start-up business, which has high growth potential and is scalable. This is high risk – high return terrain and most venture capitalist scour for opportunities in the technology sector.