A new way to find a VC?
I have been catching up on my reading. I have just finished reading this month’s Business 2.0 magazine which had an interesting article on
The 20 smartest companies to start now.
The article details several high profile VC’s (Vinold Khosla, Steve Case and others) who are outlining ideas that they are interested investing in. What’s different about this article is that they are asking for entrepreneurs to pitch their solutions to them! ie. the VC’s have ideas and they are shopping for entrepreneurs ! In its almost like the whole pitch process in reverse. The VC’s have even given an indication of what they are willing to spend and what they want for the cash. The investment areas are quite diverse from software, energy, health services, social / mobile networking and even games.
I find the approach really refreshing. What better to match a passionate VC with a energetic young startup? If any of you have watched Dragon’s Den, you’ll often see that the VC’s have different interests and often won’t invest outside portfolio. (Side note: Is it me or does the NZ version of Dragons Den seem to be giving away more money ? Is it that we have better ideas or are kiwi VC’s willing to take more risk ?)
I wonder if New Zealand VC’s would be interested pitching their ideas to budding entrepreneurs? Maybe that’s some for the NZVCA to think about.