Establishing A University Venture Capital Fund: The Case of Hanoi University of Science and Technology

For entrepreneurs to be successful in any country, they need a favourable environment in which they can develop their ideas and grow their business. The concept of this environment, an ecosystem, is rooted in earlier developments around science parks and industrial district movements. Within every entrepreneurial ecosystem much attention is focused on the role and health of its start-up component. Vietnam has experienced significant and rapid economic growth in the last twenty years; and, this shift has seen the county acknowledged as a leading nation for start-ups in Southeast Asia. As a result, an increasing number of start-ups are being formed among university students, lecturers, and researchers, especially those in Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths (STEM) disciplines. However, one of the main obstacles most start-up projects is raising capital for deploying and commercializing scientific and technological R&D results. In many Western countries (e.g. USA, UK and the EU), University venture capital funds (UVCs) have been created in an attempt to overcome this barrier. In this paper we discuss how can one university in Vietnam - Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) - establish an innovative start-up investment fund (the BK Fund). Theoretical and practical studies on setting up University venture capital funds will be necessary for HUST to overcome the legal barriers, financial resources difficulties and other constrains during the fund’s establishment and implementation process.