Click here for printer friendly page

Global Innovation – The Case for International Venture Capital Firms

The global economy has fuelled the growth of entrepreneurship and created investment opportunities almost anywhere in the world, says Dr Martin Haemmig. Entrepreneurs continue to develop innovations that create new markets and businesses. These companies increasingly need to be global in scale, in order to successfully capture market share and build out to a sustainable business that pays solid returns to investors.

The following overview by the author is a compilation of research, think-tank initiatives, round tables, conferences and discussions over the last 6 months with investors, VC firms, corporate investors, entrepreneurs and venture capital associations in Asia, Europe, Israel and the United States. It includes the cumulative learning from the “Globalizing Venture Capital” module at NVCA’s Venture Capital Institute (graduate program), which the author designed and moderated in February 2004 in San Jose/CA.

Competition drives small and large corporations for efficiencies in any aspect of the business. Technology is one relevant factor that can assist these firms to either remain or emerge as leaders in their global environment. The pressure from shareholders on their returns forces these players to focus increasingly on their core business, speeding up time to market with new products or services, and thus search for external technologies to complement their internal R&D efforts. This provides huge opportunities for startups to provide some missing product or service pieces to help these larger firms stay competitive in their offering.

This demand spurs increasingly a circle that includes larger corporations, startup companies, their venture capital firms and fund investors. It is this environment that requires international VC firms to provide their expertise of building companies and their global network to enable startups to go international. The added value by international VCs helps build faster and more globally exposed startup companies that lead to bigger and more competitive firms and thus potentially higher returns for VC funds if executed properly.

Click here to view the full article (pdf 264kb)

You need Adobe Acrobat to read this document. If you do not have it, you can download it free from www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html

Dr. Martin Haemmig has done extensive research over the last three years on over 100 international venture capital firms in Asia, Europe, Israel and the United States, and expanded since his research scope to international investors, and start-up companies with joint projects between CeTIM (Centre of Technology & Innovation Management at their university sites in Munich and Rotterdam) and with Stanford University (Business School), as well as the University of California. His book on “The Globalization of Venture Capital” (ISBN 3-258-06565-9), captured over 20 sponsors and global supporters to finance the research. www.MartinHaemmig.com; Martin@MartinHaemmig.com - Copyright © Martin Haemmig 2004.