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Avis n° 7 du 25 novembre 2011 du Conseil national du numérique en matière de financement de l'innovation Parmi les facteurs qui concourent à l'émergence d'une filière numérique forte, le développement de dispositifs de financement performants apparait comme l'une des facteurs déterminants pour la croissance des start-ups et des PME, la création d'emplois et plus généralement pour le dynamisme de l'économie. Or, les acteurs du financement de l'innovation vont faire face à de prochaines difficultés, notamment en matière de recapitalisation ; difficultés qui auront un impact direct sur l'investissement en capital-risque et capital-investissement dans les entreprises innovantes au stade le plus crucial de leur développement. C'est dans ce cadre que le Conseil national du numérique a décidé de s'autosaisir de la question du financement de l'innovation afin de formuler des recommandations destinées à permettre un maintien et un développement du financement de l'innovation, en prenant appui sur les dispositifs publics existants. Plusieurs constats essentiels se dégagent : · La France, troisième acteur du capital-risque dans le monde : même si, ramené en valeur par habitants, les chiffres du capital-risque français restent modestes, Il n'en reste pas moins qu'en valeur, le capital-risque national se positionne en 3ème place à l'échelle mondiale. · Le financement est une des pierres angulaires de l'innovation, de la croissance et de la création d'emploi. Les mesures prises ces dernières années (loi TEPA, Grand emprunt, OSEO, CIR, etc.) constituent un ensemble de dispositifs favorables s'ils sont maintenus, voire amplifiés. · Le capital-risque français est toutefois en danger en raison de la possible désaffection d'une certaine classe d'investisseurs privés et de nouvelles contraintes réglementaires (Solvency II, Bâle III) pesant sur les investisseurs institutionnels. Ainsi, plusie

Venture capital (VC) has delivered poor returns for more than a decade. VC returns  haven't significantly outperformed the public market since the late 1990s, and, since  1997, less cash has been returned to investors than has been invested in VC.  Speculation among industry insiders is that the VC model is broken, despite occasional  high-profile successes like Groupon, Zynga, LinkedIn, and Facebook in recent years.  The Kauffman Foundation investment team analyzed our twenty-year history of venture  investing experience in nearly 100 VC funds with some of the most notable and  exclusive partnership "brands" and concluded that the Limited Partner (LP) investment  model is broken 1 . Limited Partners-foundations, endowments, and state pension  fund-invest too much capital in underperforming venture capital funds on frequently  mis-aligned terms. Our research suggests that investors like us succumb time and  again to narrative fallacies, a well-studied behavioral finance bias. We found in our own  portfolio that: * Only twenty of 100 venture funds generated returns that beat a public-market  equivalent by more than 3 percent annually, and half of those began investing  prior to 1995. * The majority of funds-sixty-two out of 100-failed to exceed returns  available from the public markets, after fees and carry were paid. * There is not consistent evidence of a J-curve in venture investing since 1997;  the typical Kauffman Foundation venture fund reported peak internal rates of  return (IRRs) and investment multiples early in a fund's life (while still in the  typical sixty-month investment period), followed by serial fundraising in month  twenty-seven. * Only four of thirty venture capital funds with committed capital of more than  $400 million delivered returns better than those available from a publicly  traded small cap common stock index. * Of eighty-eight venture funds in our sample, sixty-six failed to deliver expect

Industry watchers have been talking for a long while now about how the venture capital industry is broken, highlighted by poor returns that in many cases don't even exceed that of the major stock indices. Now, thanks to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation - which has invested in nearly 100 venture capital firms across the country over the past 20 years - we're getting an inside look into the problems rattling the industry. The picture is not pretty.

One could argue that Amazon.com has had more impact on the startup community than nearly any corporate venture capital fund, largely driven through the low-cost services it provides via Amazon Web Services. But the venture capital community wasn't always a fan.

Taken all together, this report could present a material problem for venture funds looking to raise. With this much information now public, the idea of venture capital as something almost magical, that generates fat returns and makes everyone associated with it rich in the process, appears more myth than truth. Kauffman concludes with what it calls a 'nettlesome problem:' "The average VC fund fails to return investor capital after fees." Ouch.

Technologies Sensio obtient un placement de cinq millions de dollars de la part de la firme de NCP Northland Capital Partners. L'entreprise montréalaise Technologies Sensio, qui conçoit des technologies pour la diffusion de contenu télévisuel en trois dimensions sur des canaux traditionnels, obtient ce placement de cinq millions de dollars de la part de la firme NCP Northand Capital Partners en échange d'actions ordinaires

We already know that supercomputers, sophisticated algorithms and mathematical models are at the very heart of the modern financial markets. Now, with l'affaire Knight Capital we've just seen how robot traders and rogue algorithms could potentially take down Wall Street. In a span of less than an hour, a rogue algorithm programmed to exploit market efficiencies by buying and selling stocks repeatedly for profit actually inverted the logic of Wall Street: instead of buying low, selling low, the algorithm began to buy high, sell low. All told, the rogue algorithm resulted in a $440 million loss for Knight Capital, causing many to question the state of our modern financial markets

Hors Québec, l'industrie canadienne du capital-risque se remet tranquillement d'une année 2010 difficile et c'est l'industrie des nouvelles technologies qui semble écoper, selon des statistiques sur les fusions et acquisitions publiées mercredi par le cabinet Ernst & Young. Les grandes sociétés américaines, elles, flairent les bonnes affaires.

Québec investit 20 millions de dollars dans Anges Québec Capital, un nouveau fonds d'amorçage qui sera dirigé par des anges investisseurs spécialisés dans l'aide aux jeunes pousses du secteur technologique.

The debate over whether we are in a technology bubble - and if so, what kind of bubble it might be - flared up again over the weekend, sparked by a piece in the New York Times that said venture-capital investors are encouraging startups to forego revenue so they can fetch higher valuations. Others immediately took issue with this idea, however, saying there is no bubble and repeated attempts to find one are just an attempt to stir up controversy. So which is it? That depends a lot on what you mean by the term "bubble." Does it mean the kind of investment mania that resulted in a public-market bloodbath a decade ago, or just any sign of overvaluation?

He is one of the most successful, and well-known, venture capitalists in the country. He is number 20 on this year's Midas List. This morning, he predicted the demise of an industry he has pioneered for years.

"Venture funding is growing as well. According to data from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, the amount of New York City-based startups that received venture funding rose 34 percent between 2007 and 2011, while deals in Silicon Valley declined 7 percent and those for the country overall dropped 8 percent. Last year, venture investors plowed $2.75 billion into 390 startups in the New York City area-the most money and investments since 2001, when the dot-com bubble was rapidly losing air in Manhattan's "Silicon Alley" and everywhere else, too. So far this year, $942 million has been invested in 182 startups in New York."

"A new report by Moody's Investors Service suggests that while MOOCs' exploitation of expanded collaborative networks and technological innovation will benefit higher education in the United States as a whole, their long-term effect on the for-profit sector and smaller not-for-profit institutions could be damaging. MOOCs - massive open online courses - have garnered considerable attention since Stanford University's artificial intelligence course in the autumn 2011 semester attracted nearly 160,000 students. While the course's completion rate was low (15.6%), the scale of the response excited many in the higher education community - from institutions to venture capital companies. Indeed, the report notes that MOOCs represent a "pivotal development" in the evolution of higher education and have the potential to revolutionise the way a centuries-old industry has operated."

"BT is investing £2.5bn to roll-out superfast broadband to two-thirds of UK consumer and business premises by the end of 2014. Regeneris Consulting was commissioned to assess the potential economic benefits of BT's investment in superfast broadband for businesses and focussed on four case study areas: A rural area in the UK: Norfolk and Suffolk A UK town: Caerphilly A UK city: Sunderland The capital city: London The report and its observations builds on Regeneris' experience in the production of number of studies assessing the economic impact of broadband investments throughout the UK. Their work has informed business planning and bid development, including a number of the current crop of BDUK projects and projects to help secure investment from European funding sources. The 'Key Facts regarding BT's investment in Broadband' and the 'Summary of key observations' from the report are below. "

"Now, more than ever before, we have access to mounds of data and the ability to connect millions of people to do something about it. If we can connect the right minds with the most relevant data, together we can tackle global problems that previously seemed intractable. A few thoughts from Silicon Valley on how to do that."

"By the end of the year, citizens and tourists in Hue City, Vietnam's former Royal Capital, will be able to enjoy free wireless internet service anytime in the major public areas."

"Data visualization startup GetBulb was among the five startups chosen by a panel of entrepreneurs and VCs to enter the contest, and it has now scooped the €50,000 grand prize, taking the form of a convertible loan note from venture capital firm DFJ Esprit. GetBulb is targeting media companies, letting them produce data visualisations for high-res print, as well as for interactive online graphics. The other finalists were MyiFli, a mobile advertising and content service; PicTurk, a photography awards platform; KnockOn.ie, an amateur rugby community; and Storyflow, a widget to surface related links around a news story using graphics. Despite missing out on the big prize, each of the startups is working in some way with The Irish Times Group to grow their businesses, and they're also being provided with marketing to a value of €10,000."

"Since deregulation in the 1980s and the emergence of the commercial Internet in the 1990s, the telecommunications industry has faced disruptions and premature reports of its untimely demise. But the challenges have never been greater than now. The stock market has punished most large carriers while richly rewarding companies that compete with telcos. Since Google's IPO in 2004, its market capitalization has risen to about $150 billion, while the value of most operators in developed markets has fallen. The U.S. telecom industry has lost more than 100,000 jobs in the past five years and more than 400,000 in the last decade. The decline in wireless average revenue per user (ARPU), which began in the United States in 2006, has since spread to most major operators. Carriers are not standing still. They are rapidly reducing costs and trying to streamline operations1. These moves are necessary but not sufficient. The world is spinning too rapidly for restructuring as usual-no matter how deep-to keep working. Game-changing forces, such as cloud computing and "voice for free" services, are warping the industry. (See Exhibit 1.) Cloud computing, for example, exposes operators to competition from major IT players, while free voice services-led by Google, Skype, and others-threaten operators' main source of revenue."

In 2001, when the World Economic Forum first published  The Global Information and Technology Report (GITR),  the dot-com bubble had just burst; there were fewer than  20 million mobile phone users in all of Africa; and Apple  Inc.'s product line was confined to Macintosh computers.  That Report presented an optimistic view of the future,  highlighting the transformational potential of information  and communication technologies (ICT) in advancing the  progress of global society and business. In the decade  that followed, Booz & Company has witnessed firsthand  the realization of that potential in its work with clients and  communities worldwide and through its long-standing  involvement with the GITR. Today there are more than  500 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa, and  Apple is the world's largest company in market capitalization, producing iPhones, iPods, and iPads along with  Mac computers. Despite the strides the sector has made  since the technology bust in 2001, however, we believe  we are only just beginning to feel the impact of digitization-the mass adoption by consumers, businesses, and  governments of smart and connected ICT. Success in the digitization world-where competitors from Shenzhen to Schengen can emerge seemingly  overnight-requires policymakers and business leaders  to go back to the drawing board to identify and build  "right-to-win" capabilities in their spheres of influence.  Digitization is more than a matter of access. Our recent  research shows that digitization multiplies the impact of  connectivity, creating substantial incremental value in  terms not only of job creation and economic growth, but  also of societal well-being and government transparency.  Today, more than 70 percent of the world's citizens live in  societies that have just begun their digitization journeys.  As the individuals and enterprises in these societies  continue to progress in developing their own digitiza