"It is the first time the department is convening a VC delegation to Scandinavia under the Obama Administration's National Export Initiative," says Randy Mitchell, adding that it is his "job to enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. venture capital sector."
The Scandinavian trip is an initiative from the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) and its International Trade Administration (ITA). The delegation will first stop in Finland before continuing to Sweden, and then continue to Gothenburg, Sweden. It will be led by Randy Mitchell, who has a long international experience as an entrepreneur. He joined the DoC in 2001 after having worked many years abroad, including several years in Japan and Russia. He is chairman of the world's largest body of government officials working on entrepreneurship and small business (the OECD Working Party for Entrepreneurship).
Mitchell works as international trade strategist at the DoC, and he is ITA's venture capital expert. The aim of the trip is to show Nordic institutional investors such as pension funds that they can profit by allowing American venture capitalists to manage some of their investments. If the trip generates new Scandinavian business for U.S. venture capitalists that would count as an increase in U.S. exports, helping the Obama government reach its ambitious goal of doubling U.S. exports in five years.
The trip will allow Finnish and Swedish investors to meet American venture capitalists locally instead of having to travel to the U.S. Mitchell says that he did a similar pilot trip in March to Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and London.
It was called the "Global Road Show" and included top executives from leading venture firms and private equity firms, including Aurora Capital Group, The Camelot Group, Cross Atlantic Capital Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Fairview Capital Partners, ICV Capital Partners, Landmark Partners, Paul Capital, SeventySix Capital, and Trident Capital.
The composition of the group that travels to Scandinavia in November is not ready yet, but the aim is to gather a strong group that could attract the interest of Nordic institutional investors. "In an effort to increase trans-Atlantic trade and investment we also want to make U.S. venture capitalists aware of start ups and entrepreneurs in Finland and Sweden," he says.
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