Venture Investing in Science

Book excerpt: Over the past decade, software companies have increasingly monopolized the flow of venture capital, starving support for scientific research and its transformative discoveries. New medicines, cheaper and faster personal computers, and other life-changing developments all stem from investment in science. In the past, these funds led to steam engines, light bulbs, microprocessors, 3D printers, and even the Internet. In Venture Investing in Science, the venture capitalist Douglas W. Jamison and the investment author Stephen R. Waite directly link financial support to revolutionary advancements in physics, computers, chemistry, and biology and make a passionate case for continued investing in science to meet the global challenges of our time. Clean air and water, cures for intractable diseases, greener public transportation, cheaper and faster communication technologies—these are some of the rich opportunities awaiting venture capital investment today. Jamison and Waite focus on how early-stage companies specializing in commercializing transformative technologies based on deep science have been shunned by venture capitalists, and how the development of such companies have been hampered by structural changes in capital markets and government regulation over the past decade. The authors argue that reinvigorating science-based technological innovation is crucial to reactivating the economic dynamism that lifts living standards and fuels prosperity over time.