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Goat and second cheese whey from sheep’s milk are by-products of the manufacture of goat cheeses and whey cheeses from sheep. Due to their composition which, apart from water—about 92%—includes lactose, proteins, fat, and minerals, and the elevated volumes generated, these by-products constitute one of the main problems facing to cheese producers. Aiming to add value to those by-products, this study evaluates the efficiency of ultrafiltration/diafiltration (UF/DF) for the recovery of protein fraction, the most valuable component. For a daily production of 3500 and using the experimental results obtained in the UF/DF tests, a membrane installation was designed for valorization of protein fraction, which currently have no commercial value. A Cost–Benefit Analysis (CBA) and Sensitivity Analysis (SA) were performed to evaluate the profitability of installing that membrane unit to produce three new innovative products from the liquid whey protein concentrates (LWPC), namely food gels, protein concentrates in powder and whey cheeses with probiotics. It was possible to obtain LWPC of around 80% and 64% of crude protein, from second sheep cheese whey and goat cheese whey, respectively. From a survey of commercial values for the intended applications, the results of CBA and SA show that this system is economically viable in small/medium sized cheese dairies.

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Business angels (BAs) are recognized as playing a significant role in stimulating entrepreneurial activity. With the decline in both bank lending and venture capital investment since the onset of the global economic crisis, government efforts to stimulate BA activity have become a more significant component in strategies to increase the level of entrepreneurial activity. This paper examines the responsiveness of angels to such initiatives in so-called austerity economies – countries that were hardest hit by the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent global recession and, as a consequence, had to take extreme economic and fiscal measures to reduce their budget deficits. We examine this question in Portugal which experienced one of the deepest recessions in the European Union following the implementation of severe austerity measures. This study confirms that government intervention to support angel investing can have a positive impact. However, the different types of intervention have varied in take-up rates. Other countries can learn from the Portuguese experience in three ways: the types of interventions that have the highest and lowest levels of take-up, the link between the design and the take-up of incentives, and types of intervention that should be considered but have not been implemented in Portugal

Business angels provide both financing and managerial experience, which increase the likelihood of the survival of innovative start-ups. Over the last years, European countries with developing informal venture capital markets have seen governments support the creation of business angels networks (BANs) to increase and consolidate these markets. Using the Portuguese context to carry out the empirical work, this paper provides an assessment of value added provided by angels' networks. A total of 88 useable responses were received and analysed using non-parametric statistical techniques. This paper demonstrates that is evidence of positive contribution of BANs in terms of bringing together investors and linking them with entrepreneur's seeking finance. BANs played an important role in financing innovative start-ups also in peripheral regions. Results lead us to conclude that government support BANs would appear to be an effective mechanism to stimulate the angel market in developing informal venture capital markets. The conclusions of this paper are likely to have relevance for countries where there is growing interest in the potential of business angels as a means of financing innovative start-ups.

In this paper, we contribute to the literature on access to venture capital during the pre-start-up phase of innovative firms by identifying the reasons for failing to obtaining formal VC according to nascent entrepreneurs. The main reasons cited for not obtaining venture financing were the small size of the VC market and limited public policies to support venture capital participation. The sub-sample of nascent entrepreneurs who based their financing proposals on more complete business plans included “lack of interest of the venture capitalists in pre start-up phase investments” as the number one reason.

Financing immigrant microenterprises has emerged as an important economic and social issue in Europe, yet this is an area that presents specificities only partially investigated by extant literature. Using a bank's loan dataset containing information on 669 small loans granted in Portugal between 2016 and 2019, this paper explores differences between immigrants and nationals in financing microenterprises in small loans programs. The results obtained with nonparametric statistical tests allow us to conclude that immigrants are different from their national counterparts in terms of human capital and location of business activity. However, no significant differences were found between immigrant entrepreneurs (IEs) from their national counterparts in the credit amount, sector in which businesses are created and small loan repayment. Our study contributes toward broadening the literature on the financing of IE by empirically testing the thesis that claims "discrimination against minorities" by credit institutions and explores less investigated aspects with geographic or business sector focus. Results are also useful for policymakers and support providers who often face many obstacles in designing and implementing support policies for entrepreneurial immigrants.

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