It’s more than sixty years since the birth of the Private Equity (PE) and Venture Capital (VC) industries, where both have evolved into ubstantial pillars of the investment landscape since their humble beginnings in the 1950’s.

While both sectors are now fairly mature, it remains surprisingly commonplace for business owners to use the terms PE and VC interchangeably. In concept, both are vehicles for capital to flow into private companies with the expectation of returns that beat the public markets, but the differences between these asset classes far outnumber the similarities.

In this short reading you will get an introduction to the two investment classes, and if you’re thinking of raising investment for your company the knowledge you’ll gain will help you to understand where you fit into the corporate finance landscape – and what you might want to think about when you pitch your business to GP’s (you’ll learn more about GP’s and LP’s shortly!).