Today’s corporate giant likely had its start as a small private entity launched by a visionary founder a few decades ago. Think of Jack Ma incubating Alibaba (BABA) from his apartment in Hangzhou, China, in 1999, or Mark Zuckerberg founding the earliest version of Facebook (now Meta), from his Harvard University dorm room in 2004. Technology giants like these have become among the biggest companies in the world within a couple of decades.
However, growing at such a frenetic pace requires access to a massive amount of capital. In order to make the transition from an idea germinating in an entrepreneur’s brain to an operating company, they need to lease an office or factory, hire employees, buy equipment and raw materials, and put in place a sales and distribution network, among other things. These resources require significant amounts of capital, depending on the scale and scope of the business startup.