A document written to raise money for a growing company is known as<br > a business plan. The most popular types are written for entrepreneurial<br > companies seeking a private placement of funds from venture capital<br > sources. Internal venture management teams of larger companies also<br > write business plans. Although these venture plans seldom circulate to<br > external private placement sources， they do progress upward within the<br > organization for approval by corporate management.<br > Modest differences exist between the entrepreneurial plan and<br > internal venture group plan. The major difference rests in the enter-<br >prise s risk and reward structure and not in the reading or writing of the<br >document. The objectives of both types of plan are the same--launching<br >a new business or expanding a promising small business. The ultimate<br >responsibility for success or failure in one case rests with an entre-<br >preneur/venture capitalist and in the other with a manager/vice presi-<br >dent. But no matter what its origin， the document that consummates the<br >financing is called the business plan. In both cases， the document must<br >be thorough and well done to be successful in securing new capital.<br > The vast majority of business plans are prepared by entrepreneurs<br >seeking venture capital. New venture groups within large companies<br >are expanding their activities， but they do not approach the number of<br >existing small companies seeking the same goal. As a comparison， there<br >are about 14 million small businesses in the U.S.A. while only several<br >thousand larger companies exist in the country. In addition， start-up<br >companies， which still appear despite current depressed economic<br >conditions， require a special breed of entrepreneurial business plan.<br >This third category of brand new companies is the least common source<br >of business vlans.<br >