Is BlackBerry a good investment?

What are good ways to obtain EIF (European Investment Fund) investment for a Venture Capital Fund in Eastern Europe?

• The EIF has invested in numerous Venture Capital Funds in Central and Eastern Europe including: - Imprimateur has a seed & a startup fund focused on Latvia. 7.2m Euro total. Works with many university spin-offs. - Eleven runs a 12m Euro accelerator and seed fund in Bulgaria - LaunchHub, 9m accelerator and seed fund in Bulgaria - Openfund II, Greece (not CEE, but still good example), 10m Euro fund The funds invested come out of EIF JEREMIE Holding Funds for that specific country. JEREMIE provides debt and equity instruments to support SMEs. In most cases these Holding Funds seem to be managed by the EIF (even though the individual countries may decide on other management I think). To be awarded the investment the VC Funds have to answer a "Call for an Expression of Interest" that announces the plan to set up a Risk Capital Fund. There are actually a few sub-questions: - Who decides what kind of fund (pre-seed, seed, follow-up/growth financing) to set up? The country or the EIF? - To issue such a "Call for Expression of Interest" who would you have to lobby, the EIF or the countries government and regional development agencies? - Who's the decision maker on who'll be awarded the investment? The EIF, the country or is it a joint decision? I'm trying to find out the steps we'd have to take to set up a fund similar to the ones above for Romania. Lots of questions. I'll be more than happy for any feedback or answers. If you have questions for me, I'll be more than happy to answer!

• Answer:

  I have not dealt with EIF directly, so my answers are tentative and at least a bit theoretical. Based on my understanding of the JEREMIE scheme, it is rather a bureaucratic way of getting EIF funding. In countries where there are existing JEREMIE programs, you can apply for funding from the local managing authority but becoming a managing authority appears to be a heavy duty process. Furthermore, JEREMIE seems to be nearing one of its checkpoints and it is difficult to tell what the continuation is going to be like. But if you definitely want to get into JEREMIE, I think the two avenues to go would be through the proper authority in the country you are interested in (it would appear to be the Ministry for Trade and Industry (or similar) in many countries). EIF can also fund VC funds via its normal funding mechanism without going through all the JEREMIE red tape. They have invested in some 500 funds and the process - while not necessarily easy - seems straightforward enough. See: http://www.eif.europa.eu/EIF_for/venture_capital_equity_funds/index.htm. In either case, I would invest some time and effort to get to know some of the key people at EIF and meet them first unofficially to get a better understanding of the situation and to, hopefully, start creating an internal champion for your project.