Types of investment banks
• Investment banks "underwrite" (guarantee the sale of) stock and bond issues, trade for their own accounts, make markets, and advise corporations on capital markets activities such as mergers and acquisitions.
• Merchant banks were traditionally banks, which engaged in trade financing. The modern definition, however, refers to banks, which provide capital to firms in the form of shares rather than loans.
Unlike Venture capital firms, they tend not to invest in new companies.