VENTURE CAPITAL IN ASIA

Venture capital is broadly acknowledged as being an important constituent of a mature habitat for high-technology entrepreneurship as practiced in Silicon Valley (Lee et al. 2000). Each chapter in this book has examined the signifi-cance of venture capital in the economies of the regions under discussion and its particular place in the regional habitats for innovation that have appeared. As with other institutions, in each habitat the venture capital industries have differing operational characteristics, different relative mixes of national and international venture capital participation, and different investment patterns and targets. When considering and comparing these nations, it is useful to have one ideal-typical case to use as a standard of comparison. For this reason and because reproducing the Silicon Valley experience is the goal of many economic planners in Asia and around the world, this chapter uses Silicon Valley as the template for comparing the other venture capital industries. The venture capital industries of six nations examined in this boo