make European Commission & private investors strenghten
their relationships

with jean-david malo at INPHO® Venture Summit 2018

INPHO® Venture Summit, is an invite only congress that brings leading global visionaries together to exchange high level insights off the beaten tracks.

We challenge our guests to be enlightened by latest industry disruptions, contribute to innovative ideas, and exchange solutions that will influence the foundations for next generation impact.

INPHO® Venture Summit, is an invite only congress that brings leading global visionaries together to exchange high level insights off the beaten tracks.

We challenge our guests to be enlightened by latest industry disruptions, contribute to innovative ideas, and exchange solutions that will influence the foundations for next generation impact.

Mr Malo will highlight the different actions undertaken by the European Commission to foster the development of risk capital and innovation in Europe. He will especially present VentureEU, the Pan-European Venture Capital Funds-of-Funds programme, which is in operation since last April.

With VentureEU, the European Commission in partnership with the European Investment Fund (EIF) aim to boost investment in innovative start-up and scale-up companies across Europe. It will also present the recent proposals of the Commission to enhance the emergence and the scaling-up of EU deep-tech startups carrying out disruptive innovation (the so-called “European Innovation Council”) as well as to strengthen the investments in the EU (i.e. the “InvestEU” program).

Mr Malo will open the discussions with leading private investors on how to turn European excellence in science & innovation into European corporate success stories with the support of private investment. Currently, private investment funds are far from the level and the scale needed to help scale-up the many innovative and often disruptive start-ups created in Europe. In 2016, venture capitalists invested about €6.5 billion in the EU compared to €39.4 billion in the US. Invest Europe, the association representing Europe’s private equity, venture capital and infrastructure sectors, established that in 2016 venture capital funds in Europe had an average size of around €56 million whereas in the US they were on average three times bigger. Furthermore, Brussels sources state that 90% of the EU’s supply of VC has been concentrated in just eight Member States with too little cross-border investments, increasing the difficulty both for entrepreneurs to access to finance and for investors to create larger funds.

That’s why the European Commission and the European Investment Fund (EIF) have decided to create this pan-European venture capital funds-of-funds: VentureEU. The idea is to invest €410 million coming straight from the EU budget (Horizon 2020, COSME, and EFSI) in attracting more private investors to join and to foster the European ability to provide new sources of financing to innovators and skilled entrepreneurs across Europe.

For the moment, six funds have been selected by the EIF:

Under the supervision of the Commission and the EIF, those funds are expected to raise up to €2.1 billion of public and private investment. They are expected to cover projects in at least four European Countries each in order to really fight against remaining territorial inequalities in Europe.

VentureEU is expected to lead to first investments in firms in 2019. It is part of a bigger EU master plan to close innovation cycles of SMEs by providing access to (scale-up) finance. The global picture consists of the Investment Plan for Europe – the so-called Junker Plan as well as its successor beyond 2020 “InvestEU” – the upcoming European Innovation Council (EIC) proposed under the new EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, “Horizon Europe” – which will target breakthrough market-creating / disruptive innovation – and the already running programs for research and innovation Horizon 2020 (including InnovFin), for boosting the competitiveness of small and medium size companies COSME and for employment and social Innovation (EaSI). This ambitious European plan to improve the business environment as a whole will also be at stake during the upcoming INPHO® Venture Summit meeting in Bordeaux.

If you want a clear picture of what is at stake and forthcoming concerning access to finance in Europe and about the European Commission’s plans, don’t miss the session INPHO® Venture Summit 2018 will dedicate to the issue.

INPHO® Venture Summit, the unique event for executives active in smart technologies and deep tech innovations will hold its 6th edition on 11th & 12th October 2018, in Bordeaux. The event will be chaired by George Ugras, General Manager at AV8 Ventures.

In its five previous editions, INPHO® has attracted more than 500 European participants, 50 international keynote speakers and over 80 VCs and corporate funds. More than 60 start-ups have been selected to pitch, raising more than 150 M€.

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