Nasty NESTA?

The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) seems to be having an identity crisis. Initially set up to fund individuals and small groups, it now seems not to be funding individuals and small groups. It now seems it only wants to invest in “established” teams and trading businesses.

As far as I can gather, NESTA reopened its investment fund in March 2007 (having been shut since April 2006). The new investment fund – NESTA Ventures – comes with exciting, new and innovative investment criteria. Here they are: http://www.nesta.org.uk/apply-for-funding

Exit strategies and exit timeframes; experienced management teams; high exit capitalisation bla bla sodding bla... Errr, how the hell, then, does this crap differ from the funding criteria of a bog-standard (British) Venture Capital fund? Answer: it doesn’t.

What about the individual inventor then? What about the people who it was set up to support?

Well, as we all know, venture capital firms do not fund individual inventors. But now, so it seems, neither does NESTA. For more info about this disgraceful betrayal I can recommend the following article: Time to blow the final whistle on NESTA?

CAUTION: read on at your own peril – your eyes may pop out or your head might explode.