eBRC Research Report 29

From Venture Capital to Knowledge Capital: the Rise of Knowledge Investors

Marko Seppä (ed.)

Much thanks to the “Cold-War Dividend”, manifested by the breakthrough of the internet browser, about ten years ago, as well as globalization, a transformation from the industrial society to the knowledge society is under way, all over the world. While some nations or economies can already be labeled as knowledge societies, others are still more or less a mix of the (vanishing) agricultural, the (prevailing) industrial, and the (emerging) knowledge society – all three at the same time.

Building business “from idea to IPO” in the knowledge society differs from the building of business in the industrial society. While new business ideas are increasingly knowledge intensive and ever less capital intensive, and while global division of labour and extremely narrow market segmentation can be readily utilized from the start, there is – at the same time – no shortage of financial capital. However, and paradoxically enough, there is a shortage of small (and smart) enough doses of it. In fact, there is a shortage of knowledge capital investments (hands-on involvement, entrepreneurial commitment, passion, and market wisdom) and those making such investments in ambitious entrepreneurial ventures as “co-entrepreneurs”.

The report at hand is a compilation of research papers produced by eBRC’s “V2C Research Team” during its predetermined life (2001-2005) as part of the eTampere program. Albeit far from complete, this report can be viewed as a small history of the evolution of the “V2C paradigm”, the conceptualization of knowledge vs. capital investments, and the rise of knowledge investors.

Download the report in pdf-format (1,7Mb)

Distribution
e-Business Research Center eBRC
Tampere University of Technology and University of Tampere

Published by
Tampere University of Technology (TUT) and
University of Tampere (UTA)

Printed edition ISSN 1459-0158 ISBN 952-15-1533-3 (TUT) 951-44-6543-1 (UTA)	Electronic edition ISSN 1459-0166 ISBN 952-15-1534-1 (TUT) 951-44-6544-X (UTA)

Printed by Cityoffset Oy, Tampere 2005