Chris Bennett, investment executive at TVP said there was the potential for investees to learn from the experiences of other organisations in the VC's portfolio of companies. Bennett uses the example of a relatively young company, which might be growing from having 15-20 staff to up to about 50 employees, and is having to manage the change which this brings. "The chances are other people in the portfolio have been through that process dealing with the issues that come up," he said.
Bennett describes the electronic community of interest (eCOI) as helping investees from having to "reinvent the wheel", and said participants were typically companies which were looking to move into overseas markets. The aim is for the eCOI to be a best practice knowledge centre for TVP's investees.
The idea to set up the eCOI had come from the CEO and CFO forums TVP ran last year, Bennett said. The site is accessed by investees via a username and password. According to Bennett, it was set up in this way to allow the sharing of information, which would otherwise be sensitive, between the investees. Although TVP may at some stage look at making some of the information public, Bennett said its primary focus was helping its investees.
Information available through the eCOI will include case studies, and a best practice library on topics such as law, research and development, strategy, and human resources.
