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« THE LOCAL RAG | Main | DID FIFTH THIRD ABET ILLEGAL DUMPING SCHEME? »

Jul 06, 2005

BIO-TECH BUCKS

This morning I cracked open a business rag and saw an article touting a new Kalamazoo-based venture capital fund that will invest in Michigan life sciences companies.  My first thought was this is a good thing.  With a local source of capital, bio-tech start-ups in Michigan are more likely to stay in Michigan.  Then I read on ...

What I thought was a private pool of capital ready to take a flyer on local bio-tech entreprenuers is in fact another dismal "public-private" partnership.  The lead partner in the $50 million Southwest Michigan Life Sciences Venture Fund is Kalamazoo's economic development agency, Southwest Michigan First.  The fund will invest in life-science ventures in Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, and Grand Rapids over the next ten years.

It's not exactly clear how much of the fund's capital is from public sources, but the fund's primary mission is to "foster economic development" in addition to turning a profit on its investments.  So it sounds like taxpayers have been roped into investing in bio-tech with no chance of getting any of the profit that investment might generate.  But then, that's what a "public-private" partnership is all about:  The public puts up the money, and the private partner gets the profit.

We'll check further into this to find out more about the public contribution to this venture capital fund.

Posted by Wm Tingley on Jul 06, 2005 at 12:51 PM in Taxes & Public Spending |

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