All together for the development of the venture capital industry. The specialized meeting of CEOs and investment managers of venture capital companies, a member of the VC Association, was hosted by BarsamTech Venture Capital Holding on Monday, December 9, 2024.
According to Ideaagency, In this meeting, ecosystem activists examined the challenges and opportunities of venture capital companies at the current stage and tried to transfer experience and knowledge in this meeting.
Problems are solved by cooperation
The first speaker at the beginning of this meeting was Mohsen Sadri, the CEO of BarsamTech and a member of the venture capital investment commission. Expressing his happiness at the great reception of the ecosystem activists from the above meeting, he said: The reception of this meeting shows that all the activists have a great passion for activity and effort in this field.
Sadri explained the reason for the formation of the meeting as follows: We were always known as the VC Association and before we were on the board of directors of the association, we criticized the association because we believed that the association was not growing in an orderly manner. We thought funds were leading the way and VCs weren’t as nimble as they were.
The fortunate thing was that with the presence of people like Mr. Nayeri in the current period, specialized commissions were formed and we were considered as member companies of the VC commission. It was after this that we realized how difficult it can be to work in the community.
The CEO of Barsam, who believed that the purpose of the association and the said meeting is more communication between the members of the association. This activist in the field of innovation also stated: It seems that the creation of the commissions did not lead to the members moving away from each other, but it caused the trade union activists to realize what path they have ahead of them and what actions they should take. Unfortunately, what is noticeable in our guild is that the guild is waiting for a person or people to untie the knots. Our problems are solved through joint cooperation.
Practice trade union activity
Mohammad Hossein Sajjadi Nayeri, the CEO of Technotejarat, was the second speaker of this meeting. He believed that commissions should make more efforts to interact with policymakers and said: “Currently, there is a tool called the knowledge-based council working group, in which the problems of activists with the presence Six deputies from the ministries related to the issues are proposed.
Nayeri, who believes that the association should gain consultative power by working more seriously in regulatory departments, also stated: The association is trying to increase its consultative power with the efforts of your dear ones in various regulatory departments. I hope that in the future our weaknesses will be reduced and with the help of you dear ones, we will solve and refer the issues with the extra-commission rotation. In this meeting, friends from different parts of the ecosystem are present and I think this issue is going well.
The fact that extra-commission meetings are held and in these meetings different levels of managers, investment managers and investment deputies follow the discussions related to networking in line with the greater cooperation of investment managers and also the problems of the ecosystem, synergy is created because in many cases the influence of these people in the organization is The CEO is more. This is the reason why I believe that we should practice union work with each other’s help and try to be more active in this field.
We listen to criticism in the forum
Expert Abbas Ali, the secretary and board member of the Venture Investment Association, pointed out that it has been about a year since they took over the association and said: In this one year, the association’s approach to many issues has been restructured. The different opinions of different members of the forum have helped in this one year.
The expert reminded: Whenever an opinion was presented to us in the forum, we listened carefully and welcomed it. This synergism is exactly the meaning of association and guild work where everyone should help each other.
The secretary of the Venture Investment Association also stated: Instead of classifying the commissions functionally, we decided to classify the association by members, and so far we have achieved good results.
In the end, the expert explained: In this year’s forum, we tried to simultaneously improve our report from last year’s point of view in terms of content and data. So far, we have received good feedback from our annual report. The policy maker as well as the enforcer of laws have given us good feedback and with the cooperation of respected members, we decide to compile this report with more specialized indicators next year so that we can have a more complete report.
Let’s transfer experience
Seyyed Shahaboddin Hassanzadeh, Deputy CEO of Dorsa, Foolad Mobarakeh’s venture capital fund, while expressing his happiness to be in the group of ecosystem activists, explained: Trade union activity is not formed in a theatrical way. As much as the members of an association have common concerns, they will have better activity and if there is no common concern among the members, the association and guild will not be formed.
For example, we at Foolad Mobarakeh are concerned about tax credits, but most of our colleagues in the ecosystem do not have such concerns. Of course, we hope that our colleagues will never have such an experience, but what is important is to transfer the experience of different companies to each other.
Hassanzadeh, who believed that each of the experiences of different companies has been created with heavy expenses, and for this reason companies should share these experiences with each other, continued: Companies should not be stingy withholding these useful experiences from others. So I want to share my experiences and findings along the way.
What I think can be transferred consists of two experiences; One of these experiences was the transformation of a venture capital company into a corporate venture capital company. Another experience is that we have experienced all kinds of investment contracts and we have had contracts such as capital increase and share accounting. We changed four types of contracts based on the previous versions, and this variety of contracts and their repetition has added a lot of knowledge to our investment team.
Create a resume bank
Faezeh Sajjadian, venture capital manager of Technotejarat company, also emphasized the necessity of experience transfer in the ecosystem and explained: I also agree with all the friends who talked about experience transfer. My request to the forum is to create a mechanism to transfer experience so that various issues can be discussed. I suggest that the forum have a resume bank of VC experts.
We are in favor of more interaction
Mahboubeh Elmia, the CEO of Pasargad CVC was another person who attended this meeting; He began his speech as follows: We are the first CVC that was established using the capacity of Article 18 of the Leap Law with the participation of the Innovation Fund and Pasargad Bank.
Emphasizing the need to create more synergy among the members of the association, she added: increasing interaction and synergy between the members of the association will be very gratifying for us, and we hope to have a share in holding future meetings of the association.
The communication bridge between activists and politicians
Azami, who attended the meeting on behalf of the Parliament Research Center, welcomed the idea of holding the meeting in order to create synergy among the ecosystem activists and noted that there is a group called “Technology Development of Knowledge-Based Industries” in the Parliament Research Center; This group is trying to be a bridge between the ecosystem activists of this field with institutions and policymakers.
He also continued: Another goal of this group is to act as a bridge between the activists of different knowledge-based fields and the government in different areas of policy making and revision of these policies. These meetings are also a good opportunity to understand the voices of ecosystem activists and create a practical policy or regulatory package by understanding different strategies.
Locking of the Leap law of knowledge-based production by the central bank
Hassan Zali, the CEO of Sepehr Saderat Financial Group CVC, who was another speaker of the meeting, compared the state of the country’s ecosystem with some of the country’s competitors and continued: Competing countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE are different from Iran in terms of their operational and political mechanisms, and also They are more productive. In 2022, the value of investments in this area in Saudi Arabia is equivalent to about 9 billion dollars, and even countries like Lebanon and Turkey have overtaken us because the banking and government venture investment companies are locked by the central bank, and this is a point that the Innovation and Prosperity Fund He also admits it.
This ecosystem activist reminded: Currently, the share of knowledge-based companies and knowledge-based economy in the country’s GDP is about 2.7%. According to the seventh development plan, this number is supposed to reach seven percent; But reaching this number is impossible despite the current approaches. In recent years, investment risks have become very high. In this situation, we cannot be effective in the international economy and we will lose the opportunity to compete in the global economy; Because the international space has become very competitive.
Do not wait for the government
Reza Bagheri, a member of the Board of Directors of the Venture Investment Association, after asking all those present to declare their readiness if they are interested in further activities in the association, said: We have formed a committee for the development of venture capital companies in the association so that we can take measures such as transfer of experience, influence on the policy maker and improve the business environment.
Bagheri added: We have a limited capacity for experience, so we should not withhold these experiences from each other. Its result-oriented spirit is not so far from imagination because it rarely happens that standard VC companies do not profit from the results of their work. It is true that the intention of all the activists is to help the ecosystem space, but if we are to remove the economic benefit from the ecosystem, the functions of this system will be destroyed and no one will enter it; We must be able to prove to different companies that we can create more added value for companies compared to stagnant markets such as housing.
For the past one year, I have been able to transfer 10 million dollars of money to the companies I have been in contact with only through the channels of private companies, but the public sector has not provided us with such a budget despite all the promises.
Bad experiences are the way forward
Teymouri, CVC investment manager of Entekhab Group, after expressing his happiness about creating more synergy among ecosystem activists, suggested: One of the weaknesses of our country is knowledge management. In all fields, waste of resources occurs and the reason for this is improper management.
Teymouri stated: Some experiences can be caused by wrong actions of other members and we should learn from these wrong actions. It would be good if the association, preserving the identity of different companies, publishes these bad experiences without the names and logos of the companies so that other people can learn from these experiences.
Focus on financing
Saber Shajari, an expert of the Policy and Evaluation Working Group of the Presidential Nano and Technology Headquarters, the last speaker of this meeting, explained: The Nano Headquarters has reached a stage at the same time as the advancement of new technology in the country that requires the use of new financing tools. The budget limitation has resulted in us not being able to support our related projects as in the past. For this reason, we have focused on the funding program and intend to support good projects with new tools.
Shajari also reminded: The fact that companies outside of the supporting ecosystem of the headquarters get to know the literature of investment companies leads to growth and maturity for nano companies. Our program has three parts, which are tools, new resources, and the growth and maturity of companies in the financial field. There are companies that after several years still do not have a financial ID or are not well aware of which financing tools they should take for their growth.
At the end of this meeting, the members agreed to hold a meeting every season so that both the members explain their problems and the board of directors of the association talk about their activities and the challenges of moving things forward.
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