Venture Capital Industries and Policies: Some Cross-Country Comparisons

The paper summarizes the findings obtained during the first year of the Venture Fun project, carried out in an EU Network of Excellence PRIME and funded from the Sixth Framework Programme. The paper defines the central concepts of the project, identifies questions for further elaboration and study, and finally provides a rough idea of the different profiles that the studied countries (Finland, Israel, France, Italy, and the UK) evidence in the organization of their VC industries.