Venture Capital (英国国家科技艺术基金会 (NESTA)).pdf

Research report: July 2010 Venture Capital Now and After the Dotcom Crash Yannis Pierrakis 2NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. Our aim is to transform the UK’s capacity for innovation. We invest in early-stage companies, inform innovation policy and encourage a culture that helps innovation to flourish. Venture Capital Now and After the Dotcom Crash Foreword The future prosperity of the UK depends on the country’s ability to foster and support growth businesses. The venture capital industry is ideally placed to be a cornerstone of this support and, though younger than the US industry, UK funds have already had some notable successes. The financial crisis has hit all aspects of the private equity market hard, and this report shows that venture capital is no exception. With investment and fundraising slumping, it would be easy to become disheartened but our research highlights some promising signs. Successful exits have yielded good returns for funds even in the current recession; a good pipeline of investments initiated between 2004 and 2007 should bear fruit over the coming years and the introduction of the Innovation Investment Fund should help encourage investment in new businesses over the next few years. This year looks set to be tough but the industry has demonstrated its ability to work together to get the right level of funding to the very best growth businesses. This work is part of a series of research projects led by NESTA which complements our own practical experience of running a venture capital fund targeted at early-stage companies. As ever, we welcome your views. Matthew Mead Managing Director, NESTA Investments July, 2010 3Executive summary High growth, innovative companies are disproportionately important for economic growth in the UK. Venture capital is an important source of finance for these companies, one of the few sources with an appetite for risk that matches the uncertainty that c