The movement towards small, regional venture capital funds continues with the announcement of the new Intermountain Fund in Colorado Springs. 

The venture capital industry as a whole has taken an insane beating the last few three years. By beating, I’m talking about an absolute crushing. Given this, many in the industry have started rethinking VC, how it works and how to define the range. One big move is towards local venture capital funding. 

The new Intermountain Fund is one example of a fund that is geographically restricted. It is a fund focusing on local businesses in the Colorado Springs area. The fund is created by Thomas Duening, a professor at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. His goal is to raise a sufficient amount of money to provide seed capitalization to businesses in the area in need of capital financing during these tough times. 

The fund will focus on sports and outdoors recreation companies. This, of course, mirrors the area which is a hot bed of outdoor activities. The Fund will provide up to $250,000 in funding per round. The goal is to invest in 25 to 30 different companies each year. Profits from the investment will be returned to investors in the fund with 20 percent being held back by the fund.

The Intermountain Fund is yet another effort to shift the Venture Capital industry from a behemoth located on the coasts and only investing in technology businesses to something more flexible in location, scope and purpose. If you have a business focusing on the sports or outdoors recreation field in the Colorado area, then contacting the Intermountain Fund just makes sense.