Want to ask a question?
If you would like to propose a question for the panel yourself, please send an email to [email protected] To be considered, the question must be posed as an agree/disagree proposition.
Votes and Comments
Participant | Institution/Country | Vote | Confidence level | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Annu Kotiranta | Research Institute of the Finnish Economy/Finland | Disagree | 7 | I consider it unlikely that "a crowd of unsophisticated investors" could replace the need of VC funding significantly in the near future. However, the significance of crowdfunding and ICOs will most likely increase over time, especially if "ICO" as a term manages to shed its current bad reputation. |
Carlos Aguirre-Bastos | National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation/Panama | Disagree | 8 | Government backed VC will always be needed precisely to push technology advances such as we are observing with blockchain. |
Catalina Martínez García | CSIC Institute of Public Goods and Policies/Spain | Did Not Answer | ||
Chan-Yuan Wong | University of Malaya/Malaysia | Did Not Answer | ||
Charles Edquist | Lund University/Sweden | Did Not Answer | ||
David Teece | University of California Berkeley/United States | Did Not Answer | ||
Dirk Meissner | National Research University Higher School of Economics/Russia | Did Not Answer | ||
Dominique Foray | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne/Switzerland | Did Not Answer | ||
Ebrahim Souzanchi Kashani | Sharif University of Technology/Iran | Agree | 8 | This happens more in the context of developing countries within which the government plays a central role in resource allocation and controls the financial systems. |
Ernesto Fernandez Polcuch | UNESCO | Did Not Answer | ||
Frédérique Sachwald | Observatoire des sciences et des techniques (OST)/France | No Opinion | ||
Ganesh Rasagam | World Bank | Disagree | 8 | Government-backed VC funds are still required in many markets given the nascent ecosystem for entrepreneurship and risk pricing; new forms of financing will need more time and demonstrated acceptability and trust before they can replace more traditional financing instruments. |
Giovanni Dosi | Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna | Did Not Answer | ||
Gonzalo Ordonez-Matamoros | Externado University of Colombia/Columbia | Did Not Answer | ||
Guillermo A. Lemarchand | UNESCO | No Opinion | ||
Ian Hughes | Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation/Ireland | No Opinion | ||
Jaideep Prabhu | University of Cambridge/United Kingdom/India | Disagree | 7 | |
Jan Wessels | VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik/Germany | Agree | 3 | |
Jan Youtie | Georgia Tech/United States | Did Not Answer | ||
Jelel Ezzine | Association for the Advancement of Science, Technology, and Innovation/Tunesia | Uncertain | 8 | Crowdfunding has been making quite a progress, but it remains far from being a common practice especially is developing countries. As to ICOs, a great bubble is being created and uncertainty is looming big concerning the stability and sustainability of this newcomer. Extended Comment: Let's not forget that ICT is still missing or quite frail in many parts of the world. Moreover, baking is still a luxury in many LDCs. Therefore, the development of these technologies will happen in the developed world and will take time to diffuse to the rest of the countries! |
Johannes Gadner | Council for Research and Technology Development/Austria | No Opinion | ||
Juan Mateos-Garcia | National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA)/United Kingdom | Did Not Answer | ||
Kaye Fealing | Georgia Tech/United States | Disagree | 8 | |
Keun Lee | Seoul National University Korea | Did Not Answer | ||
Luc Soete | UNU-Merit/Netherlands | Did Not Answer | ||
Luis Sanz-Menendez | CSIC Institute of Public Goods and Policies/Spain | Did Not Answer | ||
Luiz Martins de Melo | Funding Authority for Studies and Projects (FINEP)/Brazil | Disagree | 9 | Government funding have funded innovation in high uncertainty reserach activities. Private money haven´t funded these activities. |
Magnus Gulbrandsen | University of Oslo/Norway | No Opinion | ||
Margaret Kyle | MINES ParisTech/France | No Opinion | ||
Mari Jose Aranguren | Basque Institute of Competitiveness/Spain | No Opinion | - | |
Marina Yue Zhang | University of New South Wales/Australia | Did Not Answer | ||
Mark Dodgson | University of Queensland/Australia | Uncertain | 8 | Crowdfunding and ICOs are very different methods, the former is much less risky than the latter. Crowdfunding might in some circumstances remove the need for VC. ICOs are so risky they might only do so on rare occasions. |
Maryann Feldman | University of North Carolina/United States | Did Not Answer | ||
Masaru Yarime | City University of Hong Kong | Disagree | 7 | I think government-backed venture capital funds would serve different purposes, so the new forms of financing would not reduce the need for them. |
Melissa Ardanche | Comisión Sectorial de Investigación Científica | Disagree | 7 | This is neither a long run solution, nor a stable one. Innovation, especially if it is strongly research based, requires stability and continuos investments. Furthermore, the generalization of the mechanism could introduce a dangerous bias in the research and innovation agenda in favour of more popular solutions instead off the important ones. In conclusion, government funds must anyway exist. |
Mohamed Ramadan | Academy of Scientific Research and Technology/Egypt | Agree | 8 | |
Oliver Gassmann | University of St. Gallen/Switzerland | Strongly Disagree | 8 | ICOs focus purely on distributed ledger based ventures (such as blockchain). Crowdfunding has a strong B2C focus, its indication on customer acceptance is often more important than the cash. Both instruments do not substitute VC funding in technology driven ventures outside DLT, don’t mix instruments.. |
Paola Giuri | University of Bologna/Italy | Did Not Answer | ||
Patries Boekholt | Independent | No Opinion | ||
Reinhilde Veugelers | KU Leuven/Belgium | Did Not Answer | ||
Robert Atkinson | Information Technology and Innovation Foundation/United States | Strongly Disagree | 6 | ICOs are simply another form of money, no different for the purpose of funding new companies than an ACH transfer or a credit card. And while crowdfunding will increase venture funding, it is not clear that it will provide enough funding for higher risk ventures that require higher levels of venture funding. |
Sami Mahroum | INSEAD/United Arab Emirates | Did Not Answer | ||
Sonja Radas | The Institute of Economics, Zagreb/Croatia | Did Not Answer | ||
Stefan Kuhlmann | University of Twente/Netherlands | Agree | 2 | Not my core area of competence … |
Susana Borrás | Copenhagen Business School/Denmark | Strongly Disagree | 4 | |
Sylvia Schwaag Serger | Lund University/Sweden | No Opinion | ||
Uri Gabai | Israel Innovation Authority | Uncertain | 5 | I’m quite certain that we’ll see more and more new forms of finance like block chain applications and crowdfunding in the years to come. However for the time being I see these routes as complementary to government funding. Especially in (equity based) crowdfunding there is a need for some form of a mediator – government or private – to distinguish between good R&D, pure fantasy or even fraud. |
Uwe Cantner | Friedrich Schiller University Jena/Germany | Agree | 5 | In the beginning this kind of funding may be an alternative to government backed VC; but after some time and experience with such kind of funding there will come up ratings and classifications wrt success, risk etc.; and the we will be back to the current situation with lack of private VC and the goverenment to jump in |
Wolfgang Polt | Janneum Research/Austria | Disagree | 5 | Companies might fear the risk of engaging into these forms of financing and might prefer the more stable and more secure GB VC. |
Yasunori Baba | University of Tokyo/Japan | Did Not Answer |
Copyright Notice: The panel data are copyrighted. Data can be reproduced for non-commercial teaching or research purposes without infringing copyright, providing that “the Confab Club” is sufficiently acknowledged.
The Confab Club is a non-profit project and received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
How you would have voted? Let us know in the comment section below