Entrepreneurship and the Money Myth

By Paul Kedrosky · Thursday, February 22, 2007 ·
There are many myths in the venture business -- I alluded previously to the myth of U.S. VC value add -- but I was reminded of another one today. The myth? That access to money matters.

Here is some drive-by proof, with the Milken Institute having just released its 2006 capital access index figures. The top ten (with 2005 ranking in parenthesis) as follows:
1. Hong Kong (2)
2. Singapore (3)
3. United Kingdom (1)
4. Canada (10)
5. United States (4)
6. Australia (7)
7. Switzerland (12)
8. Netherlands (13)
9. Ireland (10)
10. Sweden (5)
Match this up across these countries with entrepreneurial activity, successful exits, and dominant startups, and you quickly discover pretty much zip correlation, at least in tech, life sciences, etc. Put differently, capital access is, for practical purposes, a wash across developed countries, so the factors underlying entrepreneurial success must be found elsewhere, like risk-taking, clusters, talent, etc.
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