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This is a “highly risky” investment, however, and potential investors also need to “do their own groundwork on the companies”. About 40% of firms fail.

To take part, you will need to be registered as a high net worth investor as defined by the Financial Services Authority. This means you need to have earnings of more than £100,000 a year or have net assets in excess of £250,000, excluding pension and insurance benefits.

BECOMING A LENDER

Another way to step into the gap left by the ailing banks is to start lending money yourself.

Zopa is an online site that styles itself as “the eBay of the banking world”. It allows consumers to lend direct to others, for a small fee. Depending on whom you lend to, you can get returns of between 5% and 9%. Those rated more of a credit risk pay you higher rates.

Your money is split between 50 borrowers. Non-payments are chased as they would be by a bank. Zopa, which collects borrowers’ money by direct debit, is not a bank, so you are not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

BUYING UP ART

Many wealthy individuals and family estates are being forced to sell precious artworks at knockdown prices, according to Philip Hoffman, chief executive of the Fine Art Fund Group.

The Mei Moses index, which tracks auctions, suggests prices fell 4.5% last year, after five years of growth averaging 20% a year.

“Wealthy individuals are seeing their businesses decline, but find themselves surrounded by works of art they may have purchased many years ago. There is one piece recently which was valued at $1.3m \ but was sold for $850,000 — over a third less,” Hoffman said.

He has set up an “opportunistic” fund to cash in on these bargains and plans to raise between $50m and $100m to buy up art. There is a minimum investment of $100,000 and your money is locked up for at least three years.

However, there are sceptics.

Mark Dampier of advisers Hargreaves Lansdown said: “I think it’s too soon to get into art. I’d be more interested if the index fell by 50%.”

BUYING UP LAND

Farmers are struggling as land prices plummet and a new fund, the Farm Fund, launched last week, is seeking to raise £15m to buy up land from under-pressure farmers.

The fund is targeting an 11% return over the seven-year life of the investment with a minimum investment of £25,000 — although there are no guarantees.

Jonathan Naughton, director of the Farm Fund, said: “Farmers have had cash-flow problems recently. Not only have wheat prices dropped quite significantly in the past few months, the cost of pesticides for next year remain quite high. Farmers are also suffering from the freeze in credit affecting other businesses.”

Farmland values fell by 5.2% in the final three months of 2008 with a further fall of about 6% forecast over the course of the year, according to estate agent Knight Frank — so it may be too early to get in.

Mick Gilligan of advisers Killik warned about the projected returns for all these investments. He said: “These types of funds have a subjective valuation process — there is an instant pricing mechanism in the same way as there is with the stock market — so you need to be much more circumspect about performance records and the reliability of the fund price.”

Bob Taylor, 44, a business angel from Yeovil in Somerset, has clubbed together with six other investors to raise £120,000 for a mobile medical scanning business.

Mobile Diagnostics launched 12 months ago but failed to get bank funding for a new £500,000 scanner.

“Under normal conditions, a bank would have been happy to lend as the money would have been secured against an asset,” said Taylor.

It eventually sought help through business angel forum Envestors. “Since securing the funding, the business has gone from strength to strength,” he said.

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