We might be mining ideas in Northern Europe and North America, but we’re selling around the world.” Health care, for instance, is a universal need. And if a researcher in Utrecht or Toronto develops a treatment for adverse medical conditions endured by humans worldwide, this knowledge will find demand in multiple markets. “If you have a successful drug for Alzheimer’s, it’s not a drug limited to North America,” Landsberger says. “The human body is not defined by territory.” To find promising ideas, inkef capital will tap industry contacts, talk with existing companies mulling spin-off technologies from their operations, and also keep an eye on the research programs of Dutch and Canadian universities. Landsberger and Haggerty see these institutions as hotbeds of innovation for knowledge economies because each generation of researchers aims to better the achievements of their predecessors. “At the end of the day, knowledge economies are about providing goods and services based on strong research efforts coupled with insights into how future economies will look,” Landsberger says.

“So we look at university systems that train people to be at the cutting edge of everything they do.” They have not sought exclusive partnerships with universities because this can result in a real or perceived obligation to commercialise ideas. Also, Landsberger and Haggerty believe that free and competitive markets produce stronger venture industries. “If you look at a developed knowledge economy like Silicon Valley, there’s no exclusive access. There is relationship access – a strong alumni – but no exclusive access. If you have that, you’re limited in the capacity of capital to make a rational choice,” Haggerty says. “An ecosystem with too much exclusivity will fail.” He says sluggish economic growth in North America and Europe will not significantly weaken the potency of their homecountry knowledge economies. “Macro-economic conditions will have a small effect on research, but it’s the development costs of turning that research into something commercial that might be affected,” Haggerty says. “However, development often occurs within private structures with private funding and I don’t think that’s going to be affected. “But taking ideas and putting them out is less expensive now than in 1998, at the height of the tech boom.” Regulatory stability is important for inkef capital’s longterm ambitions.