Venture Capital Looks Backwards - and Forward: Time to Fund the Mature and Highly-Educated Once More

by Dr. Ellen Brandt   

The second high-priority Agenda item for the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project in 2015 is persuading top-tier venture capital groups to launch "new-old-style" venture funds, focused on founders and early-stage entrepreneurs over the age of 40, and participating in the administration of such funds once they are launched.

We're calling these funds "new-old-style," because far from being an aberration, they represented the historical norm up to a very few years ago, when venture capitalists seem to have lost their collective sanity - or at least, their collective common sense - and began to focus way too large a part of their efforts on funding extremely young entrepreneurs, some still in their teens.

In conjunction with what can only be called a major age-shift in funding practices, the venture community also began collectively to shift much of its funding to software "apps," including gaming, in the process draining substantial funding from other worthy sectors and industries.

We are far from the only ones calling attention to what we believe has been a massive misallocation of capital. And that's a very good thing for the proposed efforts of Bring Back the Meritocracy! in this arena.

We've already received indications of strong interest from respected venture capitalists and expect this part of the project to appeal especially to venture capitalists who are themselves graduates of the Ivies and other top-tier universities - our main target "audience" - as well as those who are themselves over age 40 - or age 60 - or perhaps age 80.

Although we hope the launching of these "new-old-style" funds will be tied to the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project name, we believe it makes sense to base them at the offices of the venture capital group or groups which decide to work with us.

I would very much like to be named an administrator of such funds, working to publicize their existence and what they are doing and helping to guide their progress. But not being a venture capitalist myself, I don't wish to participate in the raising or administration of capital, nor in making decisions about fund allocation, although I'd love to be an observer.

In fact, like many of those who will read this article - and a large proportion of those in the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" group - I have an entire portfolio of ideas for new enterprises I would myself like to found and have funded at some point.

I believe many mature and highly-educated business people have been neglected and frustrated so long as potential founders, there will likely be an avalanche of interest and enthusiasm from sophisticated, experienced, creative, talented, and deserving entrepreneurs over age 40, as we work together to correct this grievous recent imbalance in capital allocation and venture funding.

And 2015 is the year we begin.

The next blog in this series describes the real "meat" of the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project  - our long-term plans for research and job development. While these components of the project will require much concerted effort and the building of wide coalitions of participating groups, we hope to begin the journey towards their establishment in the coming year.


Agenda 2015, Part One: All We Want For Christmas - and Chanukah, Kwanzaa, and Winter Solstice: The Meritocracy Agenda, Part One:

http://destituteivyleaguer.blogspot.com/2014/12/all-we-want-for-christmas-and-chanukah.html

Agenda 2015, Part Three: The "Meat" of the Matter: For-Profit Peace Corps and Unmet Needs:

http://destituteivyleaguer.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-meat-of-matter-for-profit-peace.html


Read about and consider joining with us in the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project, a non-profit, non-monetized, non-partisan, and non-controversial long-term project helping the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in the U.S. and abroad:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/114091094386273464410/114091094386273464410/about/p/pub