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What is private equity and venture capital’s role in Europe?“We need to adapt to a purpose-driven investment approach, where we are aware of the role we have to play to bring about sustainability.”
I think we've always been associating Venture Capital with being the riskiest of all the asset classes that we typically invest in because of the volatility of the returns because of the longevity of the investments. The investment Horizons the lack of liquidity and what have you but if you look at it from today's perspective our entire economic system has to go through a fundamental economic change and in terms of the way we are doing business we need to rely on business models that have possibly not even been invented yet. This innovation, this system change that companies need to go through and adapt to is something that venture capital is capable of producing and hence in that sense Venture Capital today is not the riskiest asset class anymore. It is the asset class that potentially can provide you with the best hch against the change we have to go through. The way we have been looking at our industry in the past as being something that simply competes for attractive financial returns compared to other asset classes may be short thought my understanding of the role of venture capital going forward is that we need to adopt to a purpose driven investment approach in this industry where we become aware of the role that we have to play to bring about the sustainability and the change in our systems that we all have to rely on. Well I wish that the Venture Capital industry became more conscious about this role in the societal change that we're going through. I think we have been for years being obsessed with the pursuit of unicorns, financial unicorns that we are seeking as a value creation for investors and all the stakeholders in our industry. The reality is that for the sustainability of the society we need to focus on a different type of unicorns, we need to focus on impact unicorns that make a difference to a billion people rather than accumulating a billion of dollars or Euros in economic value. If we make a difference to a billion of people with the companies that we're investing in we don't have to be concerned about the financial value that we're going to create.