State-Funded Venture Capital

How to seed a homegrown VC market

 

Aspen Avionics makes glass cockpits for small aircraft.

Courtesy company

Lumidigm makes biometric fingerprint sensors; clients include law-enforcement agencies and the U.S. military.

In the early 1990s, New Mexico had lots of research labs and lots of people with ideas but almost no venture capitalists to fund start-ups. A state program has since attracted nearly $2 billion in investment, which has helped dozens of ventures -- including these two Albuquerque companies.