Entrepreneurship Under the Microscope: The MIT Stanford Venture Lab

Interesting write up. I am perhaps one of a handful of Pakistani origin corporate finance advisers who operate in and around the Uk venture capital industry. We have been somewhat sluggish here on the high tech side but the situation is changing. There is money around for the right sort of ventures but a lot of the right ingredients have to be in place before a UK venture capitalist will part with his money to an IT deal. Encouragingly, the Americans are getting involved over here with specialist houses setting up. This should lead to a better understanding and appraisal of technology deals with hopefully more early stage companies finding backing.

Although there have been some official soundings of encouragement on paper, I feel Pakistan has a long way to go before a local venture capital industry can be properly set up. The reasons for these are manifold but mainly tied in with small size of the corporate market, uncertain exit routes, lack of business ethics/professionalism and lack of efficient legal recourse.

There is no short term solution. The Government has to take concrete steps to address these issues, most of which involve serious reform to the existing setup. There have been some initial steps taken vis a vis State Bank of Pakistan and CBR which are positive; well-wishers of Pakistan can only hope that this process continues and there are no steps backwards.

No doubt as the US and UK experience has demonstrated, venture capital plays an important role in empowering managements, accelerating growth and creating wealth. Pakistan`s planners would do well to develop a deeper insight into this market at an early stage of its reform process.

Great Write up Adnan.

Perhaps you guys should have a Venture Lab type
forum on Chowk where you invite a company
(possibly a Pakistani company or a Pakistani-led
company. Then invite some experts (you guys could
form an expert panel) to use this interact type form to
critique the business plan. And then we readers
could also jump in. Should be fun. And instructive.