<p>The purpose of this Master's Thesis is to investigate the outlooks for a seed stage venture capital fund investing in biotechnology-related spinouts from public research to be established in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. Recommendations on how to improve any discovered deficits of the fund's prerequisites are also to be presented. </p><p>Analyses showed that the spinout potential of the research in the region is weak. The entrepreneurial prerequisites of the researchers, in terms of previous experience, business knowledge and a track record that would vouch for them being suitable entrepreneurs, are generally poor. Nor is there sufficient industry in the region to facilitate the establishment of and subsequent businesses for the spinouts. The seed fund must therefore provide any future portfolio ventures with a substantial amount of Hands-on Management. </p><p>To improve the prerequisites for the seed fund, PVA-MV must influence the researchers'attitude towards spinouts and make the monetary gains more visible. The researchers must be imbued with a business approach in their research and PVA-MV must market its services as being the intermediary of government, universities and industry and as being able to create opportunities for researchers as well as for industry. PVA-MV should also focus on the few institutes and individual researchers that do have some favourable entrepreneurial characteristics, in order to evoke professional entrepreneurs with a forming track record. To cope with the deficient prerequisites of the fund, PVA-MV must expand the competence of its own work force and focus on the rate of return rather than on building regional infrastructure pro bono as a governmental agency.</p>

The purpose of this Master's Thesis is to investigate the outlooks for a seed stage venture capital fund investing in biotechnology-related spinouts from public research to be established in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. Recommendations on how to improve any discovered deficits of the fund's prerequisites are also to be presented. Analyses showed that the spinout potential of the research in the region is weak. The entrepreneurial prerequisites of the researchers, in terms of previous experience, business knowledge and a track record that would vouch for them being suitable entrepreneurs, are generally poor. Nor is there sufficient industry in the region to facilitate the establishment of and subsequent businesses for the spinouts. The seed fund must therefore provide any future portfolio ventures with a substantial amount of Hands-on Management. To improve the prerequisites for the seed fund, PVA-MV must influence the researchers'attitude towards spinouts and make the monetary gains more visible. The researchers must be imbued with a business approach in their research and PVA-MV must market its services as being the intermediary of government, universities and industry and as being able to create opportunities for researchers as well as for industry. PVA-MV should also focus on the few institutes and individual researchers that do have some favourable entrepreneurial characteristics, in order to evoke professional entrepreneurs with a forming track record. To cope with the deficient prerequisites of the fund, PVA-MV must expand the competence of its own work force and focus on the rate of return rather than on building regional infrastructure pro bono as a governmental agency.

This study analysed the entrepreneurial intentions of academic researchers to create spinoffs in a country where the phenomenon of academic spinoffs is emerging. The study consisted of a quantitative analysis of entrepreneurial intentions, performed within the context of South Africa’s Higher Education Institutions and Science Councils.The study drew from psychological and entrepreneurship research on intentionality to measure the level of entrepreneurial intentions using specific determinants (entrepreneurial self-efficacy, personal networks, perceived role models, number of years spent at the academic institution, number of patents/ copyrights/ designs, type of research, and cooperation with industry) that characterise the emergence of academic entrepreneurial intentions that lead academics to the creation of spinoffs. The study also aimed to determine if there were differences in the entrepreneurial intentions between researchers in technical and non-technical fields of expertise.A quantitative online survey was conducted amongst researchers in higher education institutions and science councils, followed by data analysis using a multiple linear regression to measure the entrepreneurial intentions. Thereafter a determination of factors associated with the higher levels of intention and a comparison of the level of intentions was conducted between researchers from the two study groups using an analysis of coefficients and significance tests respectively.The study showed that the entrepreneurial intentions of researchers in South Africa were very low. It was also shown that entrepreneurial self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of academic entrepreneurial intentions. Furthermore it was found that there was no significant difference in the entrepreneurial intentions between researchers in technical and non technical fields of expertise. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted