Article

Venture Capitalists’ Investment Decision Criteria for New Ventures: An Exploratory Study in Morocco

Abstract

The Private Equity (PE) industry in Morocco is one of the most predominant players in North African
countries. Funds under management in Morocco grew from 40 million USD between 1993 and 1999 to
1.11 billion USD in 2016. These developments, together with the recent announcement of the Moroccan
government’s vision adopting a new investment scheme provide an opportunity to examine the PE
industry. In the light of the differences in investment opportunities around Morocco and the nature of industrial developments in North African countries’ social context, the authors of this article anticipated that the investment criteria used by Moroccan Venture Capitalists (VCs) in their venture screening and evaluation
processes would differ. Our approach is qualitative and exploratory in nature. Semi-structured interviews
with a short questionnaire were adopted and eight General Partners and two VC consultants were selected
due to their having greater experience in technology-based ventures funding. The study contributes to the
understanding and provides insights into the screening process of Moroccan VCs. It is deemed useful in
small equity markets to both VCs in their screening criteria and therefore their decision-making processes
and to entrepreneurs in their venture capital applications so as to maximize their success rate.

Keywords

Screening criteria Decision-making process Venture capital Small equity markets