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Cultural and creative sectors face continued funding gap

Apr 5, 2019 | News

(05 April 2019) – Today, the European Commission published a new study which finds that the cultural and creative sectors across Europe continue to face challenges to receive loans or equity finance for new activities.

Theatre
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Barriers usually include the difficulty of assessing the value of intangible assets of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), their lack of business track records or scalability. Between 2014 and 2020, these obstacles prevented enterprises to access between €8 and €13 billion.

At the same time, the study shows that EU’s support for the cultural and creative sectors through its Creative Europe programme, worth €1.46 billion in 2014-2020, is benefiting SMEs, which face difficulties to access finance.

For the future, the study recommends implementing a mix of financial instruments and technical assistance under the new InvestEU Programme. Alongside the expansion of the Guarantee Facility for cultural and creative sectors, these instruments could include co-investment with business angels and with venture capital firms, complemented by equity crowdfunding.

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