The Match Maker, which is part of an initiative of the European Commission, centralizes and manages the main ingredients of a successful business venture:

Many venture capital initiatives fail because of insufficient access to information and funding. The Match Maker provides both the platforms (logical and operational) and the match making service. It is the virtual meeting place for venture capital providers and capital seeking companies. At the same time the Match Maker is a mediator and facilitator between the capital seeking company and the investor. It is directed towards the needs of both providing the opportunity to benefit from a network and information throughput that optimizes their capital seeking and investing efforts.

Objective

The Match Maker is an integral part of the CIPRATECH (Capital Investment Probabilistic Risk Assessment TECHnology), an initiative of the European Commission (EC) in the sector of Innovation and Technology Transfer. As such it shares the objective to help European firms compete more effectively in the global market place and to make European capital investments in hi-tech firms more successful. CIPRATECH translates this goal into the transfer of risk evaluation technologies developed for the nuclear engineering sector to the capital investment sector. The CIPRATECH concept is based on a suite of methodology, services and tools that aim at facilitating the evaluation of risk for venture capital initiatives for EU investors and allowing for investment decisions to be made in the full light of the risks and uncertainties. The MATCH MAKER complements this suite by providing improved, faster and more focused access to funding in line with a venture capital oriented culture which favors high risk ventures such as hi-tech start-ups, small and medium enterprises, new technology-based firms and innovative product development.

Function

The Match Maker is a mediator and facilitator between the capital seeking company (entrepreneur) and the venture capital provider (investor). It is directed towards the needs of both by standardizing and streamlining the front-end stages of the venture capital process. The Match Maker provides easy on-line access to investors in an efficient and monitored fashion.

Competitive Advantage

As an initiative of the EC, the Match Maker benefits from significant visibility and a quality trademark associated with the management practices of EC projects. As a direct consequence the Match Maker has the advantage of naturally attracting companies interested in submitting their Business Plan Summary to professional venture capital providers. The investor benefits from this significant feed of Business Plan Summaries that are likely to meet his investment preferences. At the same token the Match Maker supports the capital seeking company in two main activities that are increasing their potential for funding: a) the completion of a strategic Business Plan Summary which is attractive to the investor b) the exposure of its business opportunity to the investor in a guided and monitored fashion while guaranteeing Privacy and Confidentiality of information submitted.

Process

The Match Maker checks for initial compatibility between the investor's preferences and the business characteristics of the capital seeking company. In the case of a successful compatibility check the entrepreneur is required to complete a proprietary Business Plan Summary with relevant investment criteria. The completion of the Business Plan Summary is done in a standardized way guiding the user through the whole process on-line and ascertaining its completeness and structure. The Match Maker tracks the progress of the Business Plan Summary completion and, once submitted, looks for matches with the investor's preferences.

Consortium

A Consortium has been formed within the context of the CIPRATECH project with the purpose to establish a pilot and at a second stage a service company foreseen for the year 2001. The consortium consists of a group of experts coming from the banking sector, venture capital industry, sectorial market analysis industry, marketing and business consultancy and research organizations. These experts are working together to capture the necessary ingredients that constitute a successful capital raising strategy and emulate this process resulting in the Match Maker.

STEP 1:

The investor registers and enters his investment preferences. The entrepreneur registers and enters his basic business characteristics and main investment requirements in the form of a Business plan Summary into the Match Maker. At this stage he only provides a very condensed and minimal view of his investment opportunity. The Match Maker facilitates the entry of this respective data by providing the user with standard templates and explanations.

STEP 2:

The Match Maker assesses compatibility between the investment preferences expressed by the investor and the basic business characteristics presented by the entrepreneur.

STEP 3:

Upon a successful initial compatibility check the entrepreneur needs to complete a Business Plan Summary. The Business Plan Summary is a proprietary digital document that summarizes the pertinent information from your complete business plan into a comprehensive and concise document. It is segmented into various sections that can be completed either all at once or sequentially while the Match Maker is tracking the progress. 

STEP 4:

Once you decide to submit your Business Plan Summary the Match Maker processes it and cross-checks it automatically against the investment preferences indicated by the registered investors. If one or more matches are found the user will be informed and the matches displayed. Additionally, the investor has the option to view all registered Business Plan Summaries. At this point the investor, if interested, will request the complete Business Plan from the entrepreneur and direct negotiations between the two parties involved begin.
 

To obtain more information about Match Maker you can visit the relevant section in the Cipratech web site by clicking here.