Strength of market forces and the successful emergence of Israel's Venture capital industry: Insights from a policy-led case of structural change

Through a microeconomic analysis of companies in Israel's Venture Capital (VC) industry this paper aims to contribute to the discussion of targeted policies directed to the emergence of new industries, particularly but not only Venture Capital and High Tech industries. It integrates a firm-level dimension to previous work on VC Emergence which was wholly conducted at the industry or meso-economic level. The central contribution of the paper is the notion of "Class A Market Forces" which our analysis shows characterized VC companies and VC-related activity during pre- and "early" Venture Capital emergence in Israel. The paper argues that this "high quality" feature of "early" market agents in the area was an important factor in the successful policy-led emergence of Israel's VC industry. The theme is part of a wider agenda of analyzing two types of links and related co-evolutionary processes: those between Structural Change, particularly policy-led Structural Change, and Economic Growth; and in a more indirect fashion, between Economic Growth on the one hand and the successful implementation of high-impact targeted "industry emergence" policies on the other.