Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's fair to say, as Michael said, that we have tremendous innovation in Canada. We have a thriving VC community and innovation entrepreneurs. I think one of the challenges that we have in Canada is having interest from mid-sized companies and la

Industry committee  Right now there is $560 million that was committed.

Industry committee  We're at one-third of that. The program is $1.3 billion, of which $900 million is from the private sector, and the balance is from government, including the provincial government. When we talk about a fund of funds, there is investing in a funder's commitment to the fund, and th

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  That's good.

Industry committee  I think we agree that we pay one-third of the VCAP going into the investment in the underlying portfolio. I think that's the model of the VCAP.

Industry committee  It's a question of capital base. We have an economic capital formula through which we try to lend and then we calculate the risk. I think the lending books are increasing. Venture capital is also an area where there are big investments. We have areas like women in tech that we se

Industry committee  That's correct.

Industry committee  That's for manufacturing.

Industry committee  That's for manufacturing start-ups.

Industry committee  A start-up is defined as something having been in business for less than two years.

Industry committee  This is the lending side. As I mentioned earlier, we also do it via equity investment.

Industry committee  That's correct.

Industry committee  I think we take the risks. When you have a manufacturing start-up, if it's advanced manufacturing, we're often.... We have the example of Diablo. We've been backing the company for 13 years.

Industry committee  I'll come back to the point we made before. That's the first loan: $150,000. Once it comes to repeat business, it goes into the $6-billion portfolio. As I said before, it's $150,000, and then we launch $500,000 to provide more resources to start.