InVenFin venture : seed capital

According to Engineering News, Investment holding company VenFin has broadened it scope of potential investment opportunities with InVenFin, an early-stage intellectual property venture capital fund. VenFin is the sole shareholder in InVenFin, and has committed R50-million in seed capital."We have established InVenFin to provide specialist funding and support to inventors at an early stage, to develop their intellectual property and eventually succeed in corporatising it," says VenFin CEO Jannie Durand. He notes that VenFin has several large companies in the group, which means that smaller opportunities may be overlooked - a problem which can now be solved through InVenFin. Kieser (deputy chairperson) is a former chairperson of Enterprise IG. The CEO is Brett Commaille, formerly from Standard Bank. Other board members include John Newbury, former CEO of Nissan, patent and intellectual property attorney Don MacRobert, and design and branding specialist Kees Schilperoort. InVenFin's investment will typically vary between R500 000 to R10-million, says Commaille.

Afro-IP has reported on a number of other initiatives used to stimulate a knowledge based economy in South Africa including The Technology Innovation Agency Bill and the Tax Incentive Guideline.