For more than three decades, Innovative Ventures has worked with governmental funding organizations to establish and manage investment funds, allowing portfolio companies to scale, working with post-Soviet companies to privatize state-run ventures.
Innovative Ventures expertise is an asset – working across continents, with funding organizations across diverse economic situations, and with a huge range of experience to grow companies in their region, regardless of the sophistication of the governmental organization funding them.
Innovative Venture’s funds exceed $500 million across multiple geographies and a variety of legal systems, asset classes, stage of investment, tech/non-tech, business models and risk profiles. This depth of experience, coupled with a global talent team in nearly every industry across multiple disciplines, brings exceptional depth of experience to projects.
Innovative Ventures Inc. (IVI) was founded in 1986, creating initially a royalty-based cash flow fund in Michigan to invest in underfinanced/underserved small to medium sized enterprises in the State.
Innovative Ventures then took the Michigan model to Canada in 1992, ‘missionary’ selling it and creating Innovative Venture’s first international fund.
From Canada, we expanded and created venture capital, private equity, fund-of-funds, grant (innovation) and cash flow funds in Europe, Africa, Russia and Kazakhstan, employing a bootstrapped, missionary selling model that utilized relationship building to raise funds from government, DFI and institutional investors. We even convinced the EU to hire Innovative Ventures to implement a tech VC fund––proof of our value to win this EU contract––and the EU typically only hires EU firms!
These multi-asset funds by deal structure and vintage include:
- Fund-of-Funds: Africa, 1994, $5MM
- Venture Debt: Canada, 1992, C$100MM; Sub-Sahara Africa, 1993, $280MM
- Royalty/Cash Flow: US, 1986, $4MM; France/Germany, 1992 $5MM; Europe, 1994, $10MM
- VC/PE: South Africa, 1996 $30MM; Russia, 1997 $32MM
- Corporate VC: Russia, 2005 $5MM
- Innovation Grants: Kazakhstan, 2010 $75MM