Iratel Ventures Breakfast Series #6
We had the pleasure of hosting an amazing group of ecosystem players during the Iratel Ventures Breakfast Series #6 on Thursday. This was a special mid-month event as we were expecting a unicorn reigning entrepreneur. These events are usually open to RSVPs a week before the event.
The format was based on Lean Coffee, an agenda less but structured one where everyone got to introduce themselves, nominate a topic to be discussed and then vote for the most popular ones by the group.
One topic has consistently been brought up in different events so we decided to dedicate the whole session to this topic.
Attracting Foreign Investment
Many excellent points were raised. Legal infrastructure was cited as one of the biggest obstacles to foreign investment in technology startups and even the wider businesses. The role of the government and policy was also mentioned and some said without a proper plan to attract foreign capital, the ecosystem will never be able to do it in isolation.
Another approach was looking at reasons foreign investors would come to the market. They either come for the market (consumers) or for the technology (producers). We have abundant examples of the former but not many examples of the latter and it was argued that we need to build technology that is attractive enough for investors that in the process of investing in the technology and the people behind it, the other factors will get sorted out and will become a best practice for others.
We believe the more open the dialogue, the better it will allow innovation and bringing different disciplines including the investors together.
We’re so glad our guests constantly help us improve these events by the feedback they provide:
Investors all around the world are looking for these “3 greats”: Great team, great product and great market. In Iran we have a great market but we have weaknesses in teams and products.
Finally, if you’d like to be added to the breakfast mailing list, please sign up or follow us on LinkedIn.
This is the eighth in a series of posts about Iratel Ventures Events. We’d love to hear from teams with crazy (but commercial) startups. Get in touch or attend our breakfast series. Finally, don’t forget to get your IV Score or talk to ourFundingBot to prepare for your next VC meeting.