ÖZET
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.