Aaron Chambers has a good interview with Illinois Commerce Director Jack Lavin focusing on the administration’s effort to promote a venture capital fund. For those waiting on me to have a snarky take on this one–sorry, it’s actually one of many issues I think needs to be done in Missouri, but instead Missouri is having foundations push money directly into a single industry (biotech) without enough cash to make a difference and a Lege that might make therapeutic cloning illegal.
The administration’s plan in Illinois doesn’t direct it towards a specific industry and makes it clear that performance is a criteria. Those two issues along with a strong base of research universities make the effort a good bet.
Chambers asks about this in the story, the question is how to get it to pass the Lege. Members will want to reserve a certain portion outside of the Chicago area. While the impulse is understandable, the best bet is to do exactly as Lavin suggests:
The bill calls for geographic and sector diversification on the investments that those funds make. We have, obviously, an issue in Illinois if most of the venture capital is invested in the Chicagoland area and other parts of the state aren’t getting investment. So part of the Opportunity Fund is to geographically diversify where we’re investing.
Q: Is there agreement? Is there a bill ready to go?
A: There is a bill that is almost ready to go. Going into this next session, we’ll have a bill ready to go shortly.
Q: So you do anticipate something moving this session then, this spring?
A: We intend to have the bill move, or introduced again, yes.
Q: Would the measure specifically, statutorily, require that a certain percent of the dollars be invested in startups outside the Chicago region, downstate?
A: There is nothing that specifically defines what will be outside of the Chicago region, though part of the intent of the law is that there will be diversification. So as the board is set up that will be one of their goals, to geographically disperse and diversify where the investments go.
Via Capitol Fax that points out why we see more of these kinds of full text interviews.