Fund aims to promote more innovation

The National Innovation Agency (NIA) and Thailand's Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank (SME Bank) have formed a joint venture with the private sector to set up Thai Food and Innovation VCF to promote potential innovative projects in food and bio-related businesses.

The new company is a venture-capital fund aimed at promoting small and medium innovative projects to commercial business. It has start-up capital worth Bt210 million for seven years.

Japan Asia Investment holds 47.62 per cent of the investment, NIA and SME Bank each hold 23.81 per cent and local Vnet Capital has the remaining 4.76 per cent.

Around 80 per cent of total investment projects will focus on food innovation, while the remaining 20 per cent will be bio-related businesses and other potential innovations, said Vnet Capital's chairman Narong Intanate.

It will limit investment to not more than Bt42 million in each project in the first seven years. The return on investment is projected to be about 19 per cent per year, he said.

NIA's director Supachai Lorlowhakarn said the company would also pick up interesting research projects at NIA and develop them into commercial businesses: for example, vacuum tubes for blood samples and organic asparagus.

"This joint-venture company will encourage local operators to initiate more innovation and enhance their competence for long-term global business competition," he said.

It also targets those companies for future listing in the Market for Alternative Investment and the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

For the past four years, NIA has supported 285 projects with a total budget of Bt328 million.

So far, all the projects that have been supported have generated real investment worth more than Bt7 billion.