I recently attended a forum where one of the speakers Ken Njoroge, the CEO of Cellulant, shared his business experience. One of the things that emerged was the lack of financial support for small businesses. Ken shared how on several occasions his company almost wound up(near death experiences)when all they needed was a capital injection of no more than Kshs 2 million.

Fortunately for Ken, eventually the seed capital came from a local investor who was willing to give his business and ideas a chance.

People, don't you find it a little odd that even though the ICT industry is a high growth one and very promising, the general Kenyan investor has totally ignored its companies except for those listed at NSE.

To support my argument, the list of the worlds top 10 brands includes 5 ICT companies

http://www.interbrand.com/best_global_brands.aspx

Locally, 3 ICT companies featured in the top 10 SMEs in 2009, while in 2008, 4 ICT companies were in the top 10 list

http://www.kenyatop100.co.ke/section.asp?id=17

My dream is to set up a venture capital fund that will exclusively fund nascent local ICT companies in the next 5-10 years.

Am I on to something or is it just a pipe dream?

@muganda are you saying that if ICT companies were able to secure intellectual property for their services, processes or inventions then their real value would be realised and investors would be more interested? That's an interesting and insightful perspective

I know that the WIPO(world intellectual property Organisation)has a kenyan chapter, what is not clear is how active it is in registering patents.

So what am describing as a local problem is indeed a global one? Are the developed economies doing anything to streamline and benchmark the valuation of intellectual property or will it remain a game of betting on your your hunch for would-be investors?

I appreciate that inventions in this industry are usually very disruptive and hence to the average investor (who prefers to work with precedence) a bit risky.

I guess this is a call to the brave hearts. LETS DO IT

The funder/loaner/investor also takes a lot of risk... there is zero return if the venture fails...

At the minimum, they would want what the bank offers but the higher risk means they expect a higher return. Risk-Reward Ratio.

Even in silicon valley, the expectations of returns are high coz the failure rate is also high... the successful ventures have to carry/cover the failures...