Latvia has the potential to create new venture capital funds, experts believe. At the same time, it is noted that there is always a problem of funding availability in relation to financial support of companies, and that it is highly important to preserve a clear dialogue with industry representatives.

Janis Janevics, parent of the manager of Imprimatur Capital Fund Manager venture capital fund, believes that funding is not available in Latvia on a serious institutional level, therefore, there must be enough place for other financial instruments.

Representative of BaltCap venture capital fund Astra Neimane also says that Baltcap and Imprimatur have enough funds for investments, but those are mostly investment amounts up to three million EUR (2.1 million LVL). «Other funds can definitely function in parallel. The more fund there are, the more investment opportunities there will be for companies,»- Neimane says.

TechHub Riga IT-incubator manager Andris Berzins says that early start companies lack proper financing in Latvia. «For the past four months, four incubator companies attracted financing in the amount of 500 thousand EUR (350 thousand LVL). All investors are from Germany, Estonia and other countries. Latvia does not have an example of a big-business success yet, like it was with Skype in Estonia – which greatly contributed to the appearance of business-angels investing in future companies,»- he admits, adding, that business-angels are not a classic example of venture capital funds, because such investors not only offer money to future companies, but knowledge as well.

The Head of TechHubRiga proposed the Economy Minister Danels Pavluts to create an instrument for cooperation, which would help new companies that take part in accelerator programs.

Pavluts admits that existing programs do not function optimally because of different reasons, and the main reason not always lies in financing availability. “We must come up with resolution, therefore, it is important for me to support dialogues with industry representatives and solve problems,”- says the minister. He also promised to assess the question of what additional instruments are necessary to resolve existing problems.

Ref: 103.109.109.2211