Small Business: Efforts to Facilitate Equity Capital Formation

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the U.S. small businesses' access to equity capital financing, focusing on: (1) the major sources of external equity capital for U.S. small businesses and the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Office of Advocacy (OA) estimate of its perceived needs for equity capital financing; (2) trends for the period of 1994-1999 in small business equity capital financing; (3) how market practices and securities law regulations for equity capital-raising activities could affect small business; and (4) any efforts undertaken by federal and state agencies to facilitate small businesses' access to equity capital.