Sorry, I was confused whether the question was for us or for another colleague here.
Yes, regarding patient capital, it's funny because people think “patient” refers to people in hospitals. That's not what it is. Patient capital is that long-term investment—that long-term play.
We often see that VCs like to see early double-digits on their return on a three- to four-year investment. With the dips and the highs and lows that we've seen in the economy in the past few years as a result of COVID, and this market dip we're experiencing right now, I absolutely think that patient capital needs to be a big part of the mix.
We also saw that the government made the announcement around the VCCI funding this week. Those types of incentives bring venture capitalists and other investors to the table and create an assurance that there will be an opportunity for a bit longer term.
Any time the government really puts its hand up and says that it wants to be a part of this, there is a bit more of a guarantee that the patient capital can persist. It gives outside private sector investors a bit of assurance that if the government is at the table, they're in it for the long game.
The thing that's really interesting about this concept of patient capital is that it really depends on the sector. We see clean technology companies, which are very capital intensive because they're investing in equipment, manufacturing and a lot of R and D to get—let's keep it simple—a solar panel prepared to go to market versus a software-as-a-service company where everything can be done in the cloud and a bunch of kids sitting are in shorts, working on laptops in co-working spaces or at home. The ability to scale up a company that's all here and operating here versus actually building the material and testing it for market are two very different things.
In the business of clean technology, and also to a certain degree in health technology when we're talking about medical devices, that patient capital is essential in terms of making sure that those products can slowly make their way to market.
The other side of that is with patient capital investments, there are often big regulatory hurdles. Those who are making the investments need to recognize that sometimes, when overcoming requirements related to FDA, Health Canada or standards approvals for particular clean technology pieces, that patient capital piece is a really big part of the equation.