2011: The Year of Venture
The BVCA has designated 2011 as 'The Year of Venture'. The coming 12 months will witness a number of high-profile events, meetings and publicity drives.
The BVCA exists to promote venture capital and its interests all of the time. There are, though, moments when it is highly opportune to place a special emphasis on the sector and at the loudest possible volume. We are all aware that the dot com boom and bust has cast a long shadow from which it has been difficult for UK venture capital to escape entirely. However, there are now real grounds for optimism that 2011 will be an especially significant year for the venture capital community which will signal the start of a decade of new commercial opportunities.
There are three particular signals which lead us to this assessment. The first is the prospect of a series of prominent exits and IPOs over the next 12 months which will involve well-known companies whose roots are in the support they have received from the venture capital sector. The second is the accumulating evidence that the United Kingdom is entrenching its role as the European hub for venture capital. The third is the evident enthusiasm of the coalition government here for expanding the venture sector. The most prominent aspect of this has been David Cameron's support for the enhancement of the East London Tech City cluster but that headline policy comes with numerous other initiatives attached. The Government is right to want to champion venture capital and we are pleased that Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, is now set to play a leading part in this enterprise as well.
In that light, the BVCA has designated 2011 as 'The Year of Venture'. The coming 12 months will witness a number of high-profile events, meetings and publicity drives. The first of these was the Inaugural Venture Capital Entrepreneur Lecture which took place on January 17th where Joanna Shields, Vice President of EMEA at Facebook addressed an audience of venture capitalists, portfolio company executives, parliamentarians and the media on the future of venture capital in Europe. There will be future events in the course of the year in co-operation with the Mayor of London's office and an enterprise reception at the House of Commons in July. We are also keen to collaborate with student entrepreneurs to encourage the emergence of the venture capitalists of the future. Other activity will include a monthly series of lunches with key external stakeholders and a portfolio company of the week highlighted on the BVCA's website. This is the year in which to associate venture capital with the theme of economic growth in the short-term and the re-balancing of the UK economy in the medium term.
All of this will, though, only be as effective as the support which we receive from the sector itself. The Year of Venture offers venture capital the chance to showcase itself anew. Venture capital firms invest in the sorts of business that will be central to Britain's ability to compete and lead in the new economy which emerges from the recession. In areas such as clean-tech, drug discovery, software and bio-tech venture capital firms are using their capital and experience to ensure these technologies are commercialised and help combat the greatest challenges of the 21st century.
Just last week we saw an outstanding example of this when BioVex, a cancer vaccine company backed by UK VC SEP, was sold for US$1bn, entering the pantheon of UK venture capital success stories alongside the likes of Sage Software, Autonomy, CSR and Playfish. It is imperative that this Government and those across Europe recognise the crucial role of the VC industry in supporting creative, groundbreaking companies. It is absolutely vital that the themes of 'enterprise' and 'venture capital' become synonymous in the minds of policymakers. It is only if that link is understood that Britain can make the sort of economic progress in the year and indeed the decade ahead that we would all wish to see.
Notes to editor
- The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA) is the industry body for the UK private equity and venture capital industry. The BVCA has approximately 520 member firms, representing the overwhelming number of UK-based private equity and venture capital firms and their advisers.