OREANDA-NEWS. April 04, 2016. At the “Innovative Enterprise Conference” in The Hague, the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the Netherlands and the European Investment Fund launched two new funds to strengthen Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the Netherlands.

Investing in SMEs

Minister of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands Henk Kamp opened the conference by giving a word of welcome to the attendees. He stressed the importance of investing in SMEs. “The recession hit Europe and the world hard and to keep our economy moving, we need young and innovative companies. We need entrepreneurs and it is vital to strengthen them with capital. The EU has a key role to play in facilitating new and alternative forms of finance.”

ICT and clean-tech

In his speech, Minister Kamp announced the launch of a second Venture and Growth Capital Fund-of-funds for Small and Medium Sized businesses in the Netherlands. The Dutch Venture Initiative II (“DVI-II”) will invest in funds investing in fast growing and/or innovative companies, following on the successful predecessor initiative called DVI-I. It will target companies in sectors like ICT, clean-tech, med-tech, renewable energy and life sciences, through primary investments in Dutch oriented Venture Capital funds.

Strengthening SMEs

Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation introduced the SME Initiative Securitisation Instrument (SISI) that will enable more lending to SMEs and small midcaps. “The European Fund for Strategic Investments and Horizon2020 are contributing a great deal to strengthening SMEs. Today we are adding a string to our bone, we are freeing up capital to create more SMEs by launching SISI.” Moedas stressed the need to attract private venture capital. For SMEs to scale up, private venture capital is needed. Therefore, Moedas announced that the European Commission is working on a pan-European fund of funds to enable venture capital.