Selecting Start-Up Businesses in a Public Venture Capital Financing using Fuzzy PROMETHEE

Abstract Public Venture Capital financing often fail rigorous scrutiny in their selection of high-potential start-ups as compared to Private Venture capital. In some developing countries, decision making on final selection for financial support of early stage but high potential Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) are often ‘clouded’ by several factors including consideration of political party affiliations. This results in low capital recovery rate and a mischance in choosing deserving start-ups. This paper applies Fuzzy Preference Ranking Organization METHod for Enrichment Evaluation (Fuzzy PROMETHEE) method to evaluate and select early-stage but high potential start-up businesses in a government high priority area such as in Information and Communications Technology. A numerical example with pre-defined linguistic terms parameterized by triangular fuzzy numbers is provided. The framework could serve as a useful tool for decision makers in scrutinizing selection of start-ups in other government priority areas.