Venture Capitalists frequently "throw" their input, feedback, value-add to the
CEOs of their portfolio companies during board meetings. But really, how many of them are true operations executives? not many, in fact. And that is where many of the CEOs get frustrated, often jump ship. I've sat on so many board meetings where VCs keep asking the CEO to work with this or that "framework". Where in reality, these VCs have no clue. Not all, but a good many late jumpers in the industry.
After the 2000 bubble burst, many VCs sat idle on their boards not knowing what to do. Frequently rotating CEOs for the sake of it, throwing good money after bad in executive searches with big headhunters. LPs are starting to wise up and demand that
VCs on fund management team bring with them an operations background.
I've heard so many LPs ask, "
are these VCs capable of being CEO or CIO for one day?" Just like it happened in Private Equity where for many years it was the playground of ex-Investment Bankers. Now any self-respecting Private Equity firm boast a deep operations team of partners and general partners.
Time for Venture Capital to wise up if it doesn't want to have another series of weak fundraisisng seasons...2010 was a record low...
L'Observateur Magazine profiles the need for more Silicon Valley trained executives and entrepreneurs to launch technology ventures back in their region, notably in the MENA region, in order for the local IT sector to get a jolt in its set ways.
The leading Francophone Business Magazine Economie&Enterprise completes an in-depth cover article on Rachid Sefrioui's BDC (Finatech). The article determines that the strategy is clearly innovative, the rollup execution is thorough and rigorous, though it questions whether the business environment locally is ready for a rapid growth story, a la Silicon Valley, where local competitors are challenged head-on while facing a newly-conglomerated market leader.
In this article, the reporter describes the realisation of our tri-continental footprint BDC (Finatech) and the global schedule of Rachid Sefrioui as CEO. Triangulating between Los Angeles (innovation), Paris (business development) and Casablanca (offshoring & Outsourcing), he has accumulated enough miles to go around the Earth about 52 times :)
With the proliferation of information, innovation access, networking tools, idea sharing and, more recently social networks, entrepreneurs from everywhere are eyeing the global innovation market. They frequently start in a region, seek capital in another, and get market traction from an area they didn't even expect.