Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Venture Capital & Wine

As budding entrepreneurs you are not doubt feeling dumbstruck by the exit of 3i from the early investment market!

The recent report by Lord Sainsbury, Race to the Top (pdf), refers to the need to make UK companies the best in the world, but many will now find it hard to get out of the starting blocks.

Fear not, public-money should be used instead (ft.com)! (edit: there is a new ft.com article on the topic that links with Nesta) no doubt Tanaka will come to the rescue too, although not necessarily through Design London (google-search "Nick Leon" if you don't know the story yet), but rather the Rajiv Ghandhi Centre - this centre seeks to help Indian companies step up to the plate (and may finally bridge the gap that spans across Imperial College departments). Unlocking the thought-process to take an fledgling idea from concept to market leadership is surely what this story is all about!

...just leaves me to ponder, would any of the folks at Tanaka Entrepreneurship have had the courage to support the novel wine-making developments in India? (read about it on ft.com) I would think that this story would make an excellent case for Marketing, Strategy (even Breakout Strategy!), Public Policy - and Entrepreneurship! (which course have I left out?) ;o)

Indians drink about 10ml of wine per capita each year
compared with 400ml in China and 50 litres in France

1 comment:

Alexis said...

Entrepreneur story: game console seeking to deploy hardware to gaming market - in face of disinterest from Game manufacturers...

Change of mindset... obviously clever move:

"We want you to support [our novel hardware]"
vs
"We want to buy the 3D touch rights to your game"


a shift that took the risk away from the Game Producers; the know-how of the organisation was used to insert support within the game software. Read the story:

Physical moves in virtual reality - by Chris Nuttall (ft.com)