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* Informal venture capital. Informal venture investors fund some 20,000 companies a year -- "many times the number financed by organized venture firms," says University of New Hampshire professor William E. Wetzel Jr., who may be the world's only expert on the subject. What's an informal venture investor? Someone who's already made his or her money, and who's now on the lookout for promising start-ups or growing businesses to back. It might be your next-door neighbor, or the founder of a company in a related industry, or a well-to-do retiree.

Companies turn to individuals rather than organized venture firms when their aspirations are relatively modest. Wetzel's rule of thumb: if you need less than $500,000, or if you anticipate annual sales of under $20 million for up to 10 years, most VC firms won't be interested. But individuals may.

The hard part is finding the right people. So far, there's no national directory of venture-oriented individual investors. But Wetzel and his colleagues at UNH have compiled a nonprofit computerized matching service called Venture Capital Network Inc., and are helping to establish similar services elsewhere in the country. For information, write VCN, P.O. Box 882, Durham NH 03824.