Access to finance can be critical to business growth and success, particularly for start-up enterprises. It can increase the speed at which company grows, fund additional product development, or simply provide enough capital to run the business until the break-even point is reached. Large companies with an established performance record and assets have an easier access obtaining finance then small companies due to their unproven management and few tangible assets that they posses. Small and medium sized enterprises mostly prefer debt in contrast to equity finance because equity funds are usually more difficult and more expensive to obtain, also its realization generally is not quick enough. Therefore, the purpose of the survey conducted for this paper is to examine current market conditions faced by Croatian small and medium sized enterprises in accessing finance and to determine availability and usage of equity finance in Croatian small and medium sized enterprises, as a way to finance their business activity.

Ekonomija