Last month I gave a presentation at the Research Innovation Center in Mississauga, looking at the topics I discussed in my last post, and presenting some implementation of a CRM system, which I did for a client.
The video of this presentation is now available at http://www.youtube.com/user/RICCentre and the slides are here: http://www.riccentre.com/images/Greg_Boutin.pdf
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It’s official, the Ontario’s Emerging Technologies Fund (ETF) is now open for business. This $250-million fund will co-invest into companies in high-growth sectors such as clean technology, life sciences and advanced health technology and digital media and information and communications technology. Co-investments are made along with qualified venture capital funds and other private investors. For more information see http://www.ocgc.gov.on.ca/
I am generally not a fan of public sector intervention in the private sector, but this comes as a positive move in contrast, since the government has wisely decided to let VCs and angels screen investments for the fund money instead of trying to do it itself. And frankly, after distorting the economy through massive subsidies to under-performing foreign car manufacturers, any public money directed towards innovative ventures is welcome. It also comes as somewhat of a relief to the Venture Capital industry in Canada, which is doing much worse than in the U.S. (yes that’s possible, apparently!), and is down to almost nothing according to this report by their association. Not that there was much in the first place!
The main question is whether there will be dollars to match. In other words, this program unlike, say, SR&ED, doesn’t make investments more attractive. It just makes it possible to invest in more companies. Since the VC model is under attack for its supposedly poor returns (with arguments I am still quite skeptical about, but that’s another story), all eyes are turned towards them to see whether they make use of that fund, or it goes primarily to Angel investments. After all, as the book Fool’s Gold asserts (thanks to the National Angel Capital Organization for the link), Angels Finance 27 Times More Start-ups Than VCs, at least in the US.
To ventures who wish to apply for a slice of this pie, my recommendation is to work both on your frontend, i.e. ultra-targeted pitches, b-plans, networking with VCs and Angels, influential advisory board, and your backend: management team, sales process, go-to-market and scaling strategy, monetization, exit. Those are both sides of the same coin, and unfortunately one of them often get neglected. Needless to say, we can help.
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