Micro venture capital

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Micro venture capital financing invests in projects too small to attract the attention of more traditional venture capitalists but too big or risky to attract capital from traditional lending sources. See venture capital.

Micro venture capital is one of the approaches adopted in Islamic economics as a substitute for interest-bearing loans, or riba, prohibited by the Qur'an.

It is also viewed by some as a promising sort of developmental aid. At the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, for example, Professor Anil Gupta has espoused a search for marketable inventions among India's poor. He believes their ingenuity is a resource that MVC can unlock.

In Latin America, micro venture capital is growing as a field as development professionals and investors realize the importance of helping entrepreneurs start formal economy companies. For more information, you may want to check out Agora Partnerships, a not-for-profit organization that invests $25,000 to $250,000 in early stage socially responsible companies in Central America.

There has been some research into this field by students at the Schulich School of Business, York University, in Toronto, Canada. Robert Tudhope, a student at the school, has documented his research on his blog, [1]. His conclusions were that traditional vehicles for investment in lesser developed economies are not suitable because of a lack of fluidity in markets, but that alternative models, such as micro venture capital, through intermediaries are a possible avenue for entry into these markets.