Overcoming Capital Constraints and Challanges of Fast Growth as an IT SME

Sammanfattning: Problem: High wage countries depend on SME's to lower unemployment, to trigger economic growth and to utilize the 'knowledge waste' created by large investments in human capital. However, due to their limited access to capital markets SME's are seen as unfavourably dependent on their own generation of internal funds to grow. Among SME's, IT firms are seen as most representative for this struggle, since they have i) a bad reputation within the public and institutional sector due to the dot-com era, and ii) assets with low collateral value (e.g. immaterial assets, human capital, knowledge, prototypes and ideas that all have unknown, unsecure and hard to predict second-hand or future values). Despite these unfavorable characteristics, some IT firms are growing considerably fast. What can we learn from them?  Purpose: Describe the financial situation of IT SME's. Investigate how those IT firms that are fast growing have grown and financed their growth, and how they have managed the effects of growth. Method: Due to the nature of the purpose a mixed method research approach was adopted. The quantitative investigation aimed at describing their fi-nancial situation and took the form of a statistical analysis of the entire IT firm population, using data from the Swedish database 'Affärsdata'. The qualitative approach took the form of telephone interviews with a sample of fast growing IT firms, to get closer to the reasoning behind their growth and it’s financing. This research approach enabled cross referencing, strengthening some of the empirical evidence found. Conclusion: Evidence was found on IT firms growing with assets of less collateral value resulting in low amounts of long term debt. Indications were found on the traditional life cycle perspective regarding SME finance has to be changed to fit IT firms; after surviving the first years of internal funding and years of overdependence on short term debt, they reach a stage (e.g. in a financial crisis, facing international expansion, or substantial R&D costs) when financial assistance is needed. Indications were also found on IT firms operating in a highly unpredictable environment demanding advanced cash management routines that today are not prioritized in favor of growth. To handle this, and to reach financial assistance when needed (most likely by involving a risk capitalist in exchange for firm ownership), those firms showing stability (i.e. through low personnel turnover, high profitability or a large cash buffer) seem to have been more successful.