Purpose: This paper aims to analyse whether the degree of formal financial access in a country affects love money investment, defined as capital provided to entrepreneurs from family and friends to finance their businesses, in early-stage entrepreneurial activities. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use multilevel mixed-effect regression models and an extensive database of over 700 thousand individuals from 53 countries between 2007 and 2017 taken from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor adult population survey. Findings: This paper finds that a country’s level of accessibility to bank debt and venture capital is positively associated with the likelihood of an individual becoming a love money investor. It also finds that the amount of capital invested by love money investors is positively correlated to the level of access to bank debt and venture capital. The results of this paper confirm the hypothesis of complementarity between the financial system and friends and family financing in the capital market for early-stage entrepreneurs. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the entrepreneurial finance literature, particularly to a better understanding of the love money investors, an important source of funding and segment of the informal investment that is sparsely studied.