Grow VC the Kiva of tech start ups

February 16th, 2010

I am proud to introduce Grow VC which has some great heritage behind it. Not only the creators but also projects like Kiva, Artistshare, Galaxy zoo and Local Motors (More on networked economics). Here is the context,

80% of the growth in the UK is created by SME’s, yet these companies are the ones that often have the least access to high quality resources that will enable them to establish a true path to economic success. And yet the pressure is on.

As Liam Byrne declared last year, “in the next decade we need to be radical about power, realistic about money and relentless on innovation”. And of course it gets ever more challenging as economic power shifts to Asia, technology migrates us towards a global level playing field. And the implications according to Economist Hamish McCrae are these:

The fight for economic survival
The fight for resources
The fight for talent – and for the best-educated young
The fight for the space of mind of consumers

Against that backdrop, Government initiatives to foster regional development via the delivery of advisory services necessary to enable businesses to be successful have been patchy at best, and poor at the worst. Even high profile organisations have failed to live up to expectations. Moreover, one could argue that entrepreneurship, the very commercial lifeline for this country is being held back by an entire eco-system and mindset. some have waived manifesto’s, others have got on with the job in hand.

Relentless on innovation – its a great sound bite or byte, which leads us on nicely to GrowVC. And within that context, one wonders whether venture has become an acronym for safe, non-venture or destroy value, because we don’t really know what we are doing? In fact writing this reminds of a piece of work I did recently for a political party in looking at rapid learning systems for SME’s which I plan to run as a series of posts in the near future.

Mike Butcher writes @techCrunch

Grow VC is a new community funding model for technology startups. Here’s how it works: Grow VC will pool 75 per cent of membership fees into a community fund that gets invested back into ‘promising startups’ which are members of the platform. The fund is managed by Grow VC but all the investment decisions are left to members who determine how to invest their portion of the fund into other startup companies that they feel have the most potential. The most successful decision makers get financially rewarded when the community fund begins earning a return on investment. So, if you promote the best companies you make moola.

Joining Grow VC, and the basic features such as building a person profile, are free. Premium features come with subscriptions ranging from $20 to $140 per month, depending on how much money the startup company is seeking or how much the investor is looking to invest. For unlimited service investments, the monthly subscription fee is $90 per month. The fund is aimed at startups that need $10,000 to $1 million USD.

The service claims to include the tools needed for building a startup from the ground up, to getting funding at the seed level. Yes, that’s quite a claim, but it’ll takle a few startups to kick the tyres to see if this platform holds up. There are other playing in this area, such as the recent Sprouter.com but Grow VC is possibly the most ambitious I’ve seen to date.

Go and check it out – it might just be the panacea you are looking for?

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