Est-ce que l'equity gap explique la faiblesse des scales-up en Wallonie?

Abstract

The mediatisation and the development of start-up implemented in a fast growing environment is increasing from year to year. However, the term “scale-up” is still not well known and understood by everyone. It appears that the Walloon region has a low rate of scale-up which is unfortunate if the impact on employment, growth and knowledge that those firms bring in the region where they belong to is considered. According to the literature, an equity gap between the start-up stage and scale-up stage could explain the difficulty faced by entrepreneurs to cross the bridge. The main purpose of this dissertation is to understand if this equity gap represents the main reason of the weakness of scale-up in Wallonia or if there are other reasons explaining this phenomenon. The literature review gives to the lector the opportunity to have a better understanding of the subject and to know what are saying different authors on the subject. Two case studies about successful scale-up put the light on the different “growth pains” and challenges faced by entrepreneurs. It appears that those ones are various and not only financial as it may have been suggested. These case studies are followed by the results of various interviews of different actors present “on the ground”. These interviews highlight the previous challenges covered during the case studies and add new ones. They are mainly about the difficulty to adapt the company’s structure to the growth, the owner’s personality and the environment. In light of the above, it may be concluded that the equity gap is not the reason why we have so few scale-up in Wallonia. It may be one of the factor but certainly not the main reason. The results of this master thesis may be interesting for entrepreneurs that are running a fast growing business and that are willing to go to the next level.