Entrepreneurs seeking to grow their business must look beyond traditional financing options such as bank lending and explore equity as a possible source of capital. Failure to do so may lead to stagnation or, ultimately, going belly up, warned a startup expert.Tarek Kettaneh, a senior lecturer of entrepreneurship at Olayan School of Business at American University of Beirut, told Zawya that funding is the major challenge that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the region face."Financiers [often] consider an SME a risky investment and they prefer more sizeable deals with big companies. The risk is the highest at the SME's start-up phase as it doesn't have a proven track record of success at such an early stage of its development," said Kettaneh, who also lectures on venture capital.