Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable

The future of accelerating innovation: evolving models, success factors and policy implications

The 8th annual Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable OXEPR (5 May, 2023).

Organisers

• Gilles Duruflé (Tech Innovation Platform, Quebec City Conference)
• Thomas Hellmann (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Karen Wilson (OECD & Affiliate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Kutlu Kazanci (Associate Director, Creative Destruction Lab Oxford)

The 8th Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable (OXEPR) explores the evolution and future of the accelerator movement. Over the last decade accelerator programmes have proliferated globally. While the initial programmes were mostly led by private investors, later initiatives were led by established corporations, universities, and a variety of other actors, including not-for-profit organisations and governments. There has been a considerable variety of acceleration approaches, leading to a wide range of outcomes. There has also been continued evolution and innovation around the concepts and structures of acceleration.

This roundtable will address three main themes:
1. What are the core models and challenges for accelerating innovation, and what is the future of innovation acceleration? What are the drivers of new approaches such as venture studios/builders, corporate innovation models, talent acceleration, and challenge- or impact-driven acceleration models?
2. For each of these new models, what are the core elements or challenges of creating a sustainable business? What is the role of affiliated funds? What are the emerging best practices?
3. What is the role of government in supporting innovation acceleration? What is the role of other ecosystem players?

Building climate tech ecosystems: trends, challenges, and opportunities

The 7th annual Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable OXEPR (6 May, 2022).

Organisers

• Gilles Duruflé (Tech Innovation Platform, Quebec City Conference)
• Thomas Hellmann (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Karen Wilson (OECD & Affiliate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Niels Schneider (Senior Venture Manager, Creative Destruction Lab Oxford)

The 7th Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable (OXEPR) in May 2022 examined trends, challenges, and opportunities for building Climate Tech ecosystems. In recent times, the global climate emergency has deepened the interest in climate-related solutions through innovation and entrepreneurship. Start-ups are introducing innovative climate technologies and business models across a diverse range of established industries. Since the history of venture capital tells us of the importance of entrepreneurial ecosystems to support entrepreneurs, the roundtable focused on the emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystems for Climate Tech, focusing mostly on the European and North American context.

The roundtable noted a significant increase in venture capital investment over the last seven years. This climate tech boom is frequently compared with the clean tech boom that ended in bust in 2005. However, there are clear differences, especially because industry incumbents show greater interest in adopting fresh solutions. This is due largely because of the increased societal and regulatory pressures to reduce carbon footprint across a wide range of industries. To make this new wave of climate tech ventures successful will require a supportive ecosystem. The roundtable identified three broad challenges: (i) patient funding models for climate tech ventures, (ii) new models of collaboration between start-ups and industry incumbents, and (iii) government and philanthropic initiatives catalysing new markets.

High growth start-up ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa: initiatives, challenges, and policy

The 6th annual Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable OXEPR (7 May, 2021).

Organisers

• Gilles Duruflé (Tech Innovation Platform, Quebec City Conference)
• Thomas Hellmann (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Karen Wilson (OECD & Affiliate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)

The 6th Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable (OXEPR) explored the rise of tech-enabled entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of this roundtable was to bring together a selected number of key stakeholders (entrepreneurs, funders, ecosystem support organisations and policy designers) of tech-enabled start-up ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa to engage in a structured conversation around trends, drivers, barriers, and policies/initiatives related to the development of such ecosystems.

Based on secondary research and preparation interviews with selected participants, the first session highlighted trends and drivers of the recent surge of tech-enabled entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa and propose a framework to structure the discussion around the following pillars: talent, acceleration and support initiatives, funding and policy which are the usual enablers of start-up ecosystems.

Four breakout sessions follow based on each of the four pillars: talent, acceleration, funding and policy. For each of them, the question is: what are the trends, the drivers, the barriers and policies or initiatives needed to accelerate the development of start-up ecosystems?

Building fintech ecosystems: emerging trends & policy implications

The 5th annual Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable OXEPR (17 May, 2019).

Organisers

• Gilles Duruflé (Tech Innovation Platform, Quebec City Conference)
• Thomas Hellmann (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Karen Wilson (OECD & Affiliate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)

The 5th Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable (OXEPR) explores the challenges of developing Fintech ecosystems and the implications for public policies. The roundtable brings together select decision-makers from diverse backgrounds across the Fintech ecosystems to discuss the recent trends and challenges of starting and scaling FinTech companies and the regulatory and non-regulatory government approaches that promote this type of activity.

Fintech continues to offer much promise for better customer experience and improved market structures. Sectors such as payments and lending are maturing, whereas areas such as Insurtech and Regtech are still experiencing growing interest. Yet, structural changes in the financial markets appear at times fragmented, and FinTech companies are often slow to scale up. Despite the broad interest in the potential of Fintech startups for improving today’s financial system, harnessing this potential introduces unique challenges, not only for the Fintech companies themselves but also for the other participants in the ecosystems, including venture capital investors and incumbent financial institutions. Policymakers who influence the Fintech ecosystems face several contradictory challenges, including (i) how to support the sector in a technology-agnostic fashion, (ii) how to enable a level playing field between incumbents and Fintech entrants, (iii) how to foster both collaboration and competition, and (iv) how to support both experimentation and financial stability. In this roundtable, we will explore the challenges faced by Fintech start-ups and scale-ups and consider options for appropriate and effective policy responses that help to facilitate the beneficial development of Fintech ecosystems.

The roundtable brings together selected practitioners, policy-makers, and academics. Under the Chatham House Rule, participants discuss cutting-edge approaches. The roundtable engages in an interactive discussion about these leading initiatives and collectively explores the implications for public policy.

Cross-border financing of high-growth entrepreneurs: emerging trends & policy implications

The 4th annual Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable OXEPR (18 May, 2018) was hosted in partnership with the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Programme.

Organisers:

• Gilles Duruflé (Tech Innovation Platform, Quebec City Conference)
• Thomas Hellmann (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Karen Wilson (OECD & Affiliate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)

The roundtable focused on the role of cross-border investments in the growth of entrepreneurial ventures. It examined the extent to which such investments benefit the local ecosystem, as well as the role of public policies in facilitating them. The roundtable presented trends in the evolution of cross-border financing over time and discussed the impact of different cross-border financing combinations, with a focus on US investments in Europe, Israel, and Canada, as well as cross-European investments.

Evidence indicates that cross-border investments play an important role in the scaling up of high-growth companies. However, when European start-up companies obtain funding from US investors, especially at the later scale-up stage, there is concern that this financing may transfer the majority of economic activity in the direction of the investor country. On the one hand, start-up ventures welcome the foreign capital, expertise, and networks that accompany cross-border investments. On the other hand, policymakers worry that cross-border investments predominantly benefit foreign economies and fail to benefit local ecosystems. Cross-European investments, as well as US and Asian investments in Europe and abroad, are becoming more common, yet policies regarding cross-border financing vary widely. Policies in some countries like Israel and Canada actively encourage foreign investments, especially from the US. Many other countries, however, lack policies and/or implicitly discourage cross-border financing. In this roundtable, we explored the challenges faced by companies, investors, and policy-makers and considered options for appropriate and effective policy responses.

Entrepreneurship in and around Universities

The 3rd annual Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable OXEPR.

Organisers

• Gilles Duruflé (Public Policy Forum, Quebec City Conference)
• Thomas Hellmann (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Karen Wilson (Senior Fellow at Bruegel, Brussels, & Affiliate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)

The 3rd OXEPR focused on the ways that universities are innovating to promote entrepreneurship and the potential role of public policy. Select decision-makers from diverse backgrounds across the entrepreneurial ecosystem discussed new and innovative approaches to promoting entrepreneurship in and around universities.

In the past, university-based entrepreneurship was synonymous with technology transfer, but over the last decade, there has been an explosion of novel approaches to promoting university-based entrepreneurship more broadly. Lower costs to launching start-ups, and the decline of traditional career opportunities, have created a more rigorous interest in student-led entrepreneurship. Innovators within and around the universities have responded to this by devising new models of promoting student-led entrepreneurship. Amongst other things, universities and private market actors have responded with newly designed programmes, freshly built spaces, new partnerships, and new financing sources. More recently, a diverse set of policymakers have begun to ask whether and how government policy should support these novel initiatives.

This roundtable brought together selected practitioners, policymakers, and academics to discuss these new practices. Under the Chatham House Rule, they discussed cutting-edge approaches from across different parts of Europe and North America with a view to exploring the role of public policy. The roundtable focused on an interactive discussion about these leading initiatives and collectively explored the implications for public policy.

Equity crowdfunding

The 2nd annual Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable OXEPR (20 May, 2016).

Organisers:

• Gilles Duruflé (Public Policy Forum, Quebec City Conference)
• Thomas Hellmann (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Karen Wilson (Senior Fellow at Bruegel, Brussels, & Affiliate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)

The 2nd Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable (OXEPR) explored the concept of 'crowdfunding' (using online platforms to enable large numbers of people to invest small amounts in new ventures). Crowdfunding has increasingly drawn attention, most recently for its possible role in providing equity funding to start-ups. According to industry estimates, crowdfunding experienced a steep market growth from USD 6.1bn in 2013 to USD 16.2bn in 2014 and is expected to have reached USD 34.4bn in 2015. The majority of that funding is currently still in the form of donations, lending, or reward/product crowdfunding (ca. 90%), not equity. However, this is changing rapidly with the opening up of securities legislation in a number of countries. The global equity crowdfunding model reports the second-highest annual growth rate (182%), behind the peer-to-peer lending model (223%) in the crowdfunding market. To date, Europe has been the leader in equity crowdfunding.

Proponents say that equity crowdfunding will allow businesses to raise capital faster and more efficiently. While there are many opportunities for the various types of crowdfunding to provide new and much-needed sources of finance, there are also a number of challenges and potential pitfalls, particularly for equity crowdfunding and for non-accredited investors.

This roundtable brought together selected academics, policymakers and practitioners to discuss the role that equity crowdfunding can play in the seed and early-stage financing market. It included interactive discussions on models and types of platforms that are emerging and the implications for regulatory authorities and public policy.

From start-up to scale-up

The 1st annual Oxford Entrepreneurship Policy Roundtable OXEPR (29 May, 2015).

Organisers:

• Gilles Duruflé (Public Policy Forum, Quebec City Conference)
• Thomas Hellmann (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
• Karen Wilson (Senior Fellow at Bruegel, Brussels, & Affiliate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)

This roundtable brought together a small group of select high-level policy makers, academics and high-profile practitioners to advance the discussion of entrepreneurship policy. It focused on the challenges of scaling up start-ups. Recently there has been a growing awareness that government policy towards entrepreneurship and early-stage financing is insufficient to generate the hoped-for economic impact on growth and employment. As a consequence, there has been a call for governments and industries to rethink how start-ups can succeed at the later stage of scaling up their businesses. This workshop discussed the origins of the scale-up problem, the present market and policy initiatives to address this issue, the significance of financial constraints, and the complementary role of ecosystem infrastructure. The workshop strove towards a clearer conceptualisation of the role of government in promoting scale-up activity. The format consisted of several prepared expert comments, followed by an interactive discussion among all the participants.