The first step in seeking Venture Capital finance is to short-list some of the most likely funds and identify, by name, the appropriate exEurotives in each. A few - certainly not more than five - should be approached in the first instance. Not only does this enable the business plan or the contact letter to be changed if they do not produce positive answers, but it avoids the danger of the business opportunity becoming too widely known and possibly devalued because of that.
- The European Venture Capital Association was created with the active support of DG Enterprise/D of the European Commission, which runs the INNOVATION/SMEs Programme. The EVenture CapitalistsA publishes on its website a searchable directory with the details of some 350 Venture Capital funds in Europe.
- The I-TEC Network of Venture Capital Funds, which gathers funds dedicated to early stage innovative technology investments, was created in 1997 by the INNOVATION/SMEs Programme in cooperation with the European Investment Fund. The funds participating in I-TEC have committed to invest at least 25% of their capital in this type of projects.
- Another Community network, created in 1990, is Eurotech Capital, which lists 15 Venture Capital funds interested in larger, transnational projects.
- The LIFT Help Desk for Financing Innovation was created by the INNOVATION/SMEs Programme to support and direct participants in Community RTD programmes in finding sources of finance for the exploitation of results.
More general information on where to find Venture Capital is available in the section on Community Support Schemes for Financing Innovation. Most of these schemes are not directly open for innovative companies, but should be accessed through the financial intermediaries participating in them.
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