As Dalus Capital, we joined the Draper Venture Network last year. The Network is a collective of independent venture funds from across sectors and continents getting together to share strategies, source opportunities, and create greater value. We cooperate on investment diligence, marketing intelligence, corporate relationships and co-investments. All member funds raise their own capital and manage their investment decisions independently.

Last week, Draper Esprit, one of our partner funds in the network, did its IPO in the London and Dublin Stock Exchanges. This is innovation applied to early stage investing. It solves one of the pain points of a VC fund, which is typically a very inefficient and slow fundraising process. Fundraising for a fund is way more difficult than fundraising for a startup. I think most entrepreneurs do not appreciate the work involved in raising a fund. [I will write a post about this at a later time but comments are welcome]

Also, the capital they raised is permanent capital allowing them to support companies for longer periods of time compared to the traditional 10 years structure of most VC funds. The Draper Esprit team explains its rationale for going public here.

We are years away from this in Latin America, but hopefully once local fund managers prove their investing skills and demonstrate good results, the public market will be ready for a similar investment vehicle here. I look forward to the day that we can do a structure like this at Dalus Capital.