Red Tape and funding not biggest challenges for entrepreneurs

Myths that funding and red tape are the two biggest challenges faced by emerging companies and entrepreneurs have been debunked by a report released on Tuesday. PwC’s report, Emerging Companies and the Ecosystem, said market access was cited as the largest commercial challenge by most respondents who took part in its survey.

Although red tape was cited as a growth inhibitor by entrepreneurs, it only ranked fourth out of 10 as a growth stopper, with only 9% of respondents choosing this option. A third myth, which was proved to be true, was that the main inhibitor of business growth is cash constraints.

A staggering 81% of the respondents had never applied for government funding opportunities, with 41% of those saying that they were unaware of any opportunities. Of the 743 participants surveyed, 58% were not part of any start-up support programme and 60% were in the technology sector. Applicants appear to be less successful in raising funding without professional assistance.

It’s encouraging to some of our emerging businesses to know that actually there is help out there, they can get access to this funding and maybe they just need a little bit of help from other people to get access to it and to know who to access it from.

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