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In his blog out yesterday (12/12/12), Robert Peston, commented on the findings of a McKinsey report that declared Britain is suffering from an investment crisis. Apparently rates of investment in UK businesses have fallen below the forecasted rate by as much as a third in 2012. You can’t exactly blame the investors, as Peston points out: “A good deal of the investment squeeze is the poisonous legacy of the recklessness of banks in the boom years, which lent unprecedented and ludicrous sums to over-indebted property developers.” Investors will certainly be cautious about investing in the same products as they did pre-crash for fear of a repeat, but there are simply new ways of making private investments that are growing rather than falling. There are managed start-up equity investment schemes like Seedrs, or debt-based lending platforms like rebuildingsociety.com that pay returns of 8% plus. The capital is out there too. A Yorkshire-based business angels network recently announced that it was looking for entrepreneurs to invest in, so when all the headlines are about how banks are not lending, perhaps they should focus more on the people who are lending money and create a more positive outlook on the UK’s business scene? There is a role for the media in covering the new ways of funding business, which the Yorkshire Post did today when it covered the Government’s investment through Funding Circle and Zopa into businesses. There might be a shortage of private investment in the traditional sense, but the times are changing and more acknowledgement of that from influential figures will spur it on at a faster pace.