Subscription of fund shares with a portfolio allocated to science and technology-based startups. With this focus, the Foundation launched, this Monday (18), a public call for subscription of shares in Funds Investment in Participations (FIP) of the seed capital/multi-strategy type, in the fundraising phase or already in the development phase investments. Until October 25th, interested funds will be able to submit a proposal for Fapesp to become a shareholder, through a contribution that can reach up to R$30 million.
The initiative launched today is part of the guideline approved by Fapesp's superior council, with a view to investing, over the next six years, around R$ 150 million in ventures that favor the diversification of support for the segment of small innovative companies linked to the Innovative Research in Small Businesses Program (Pipe).
see more
ChatGPT and Canva team up to create new design tools;…
The DANGEROUS technology that Google and Facebook preferred to do without
The foundation's focus is to subscribe to shares in funds with a portfolio allocated to science and technology-based startups (so-called deeptechs). The action launched today is part of the guideline approved by the Fapesp Superior Council to invest, over the next six years, R$ 150 million in new initiatives that aim to diversify support for small innovative companies linked to the Innovative Research in Small Businesses Program (Pipe). The criterion for contributing resources to the funds selected by Fapesp is that each portion of the fund's portfolio has shares from companies participating in or leaving Pipe.
The director-president of Fapesp's technical-administrative council (CTA), Carlos Américo Pacheco, further clarifies the terms of the institution's proposal: “We are interested in hearing proposals from investment funds whose theses are convergent with ours, which is to finance technology-intensive companies, headquartered in the state of São Paulo”, adding that, if “the FIP has 10% of the portfolio allocated to companies linked to Pipe, we will enter with up to 10% of the shares of the bottom". Currently, the ceiling for Fapesp's participation in the FIP is 'a limit of 15% of the committed capital of each fund or R$30 million, whichever is lower'.
Regarding this determination, Pacheco emphasizes that “we do not want to become majority shareholders, nor have a very concentrated participation in a fund because the idea is to enhance the investment model so that more small companies grow and become S.A. [companies anonymous.”
Since its launch in 1997, Pipe has been responsible for supporting 1,871 companies, based in 167 cities in São Paulo. Some of these deeptechs specialize in developing export technologies. “The companies in the program fall into the category of technology-based startups. In this context, they should be on the radar of investors venture capital, who typically invest in these businesses, but this does not happen”, comments Pacheco.
