BELFAST BRIEFING: HAVE CERTAIN people finally got the proverbial kick they needed to start working on creating a new investment ecosystem in Northern Ireland? One that in the future might – according to those in the know – allow the next Google to flourish in the North?

If the kick in question – which originated in the San Francisco Bay – has anything to do with it, the answer could be a hopeful yes because it is resounding on some of the most padded seats, particularly when it comes to certain government economic agencies and private firms.

The kick, so to speak, began as an online rant by a Belfast-born, now Silicon Valley-based successful tech entrepreneur about investing in the North.

David Kirk, frustrated with his experiences, penned a deeply critical lament on his blog about what he described as the “broken investment ecosystem”.

At first glance it may have appeared that Kirk was just another “retired” entrepreneur with too much time on his hands.

Why else would a successful hi-tech veteran – or as he was recently hailed “one of the top 50 Irish Americans in technology” – in sunny California devote his energies to the dreary business of investigating why certain promising start-ups never came to fruition in Northern Ireland? Or, as he discovered, why public money is continually pumped in to try and stimulate the local investment market.

But Kirk, who has the ear of quite a few influential people in Silicon Valley, is not only Belfast born, he is Northern Ireland-invested in every sense of the word.

He may have left more than four decades ago to embark on a career in the technology sector but his heart has always remained close to home. This may explain why he has, until recently, consistently returned to invest his money and time in what he believes are high-potential start-ups.

This prompted him to ask lots of questions that made certain government officials and investment-fund managers very uncomfortable.

He could just have taken his money and looked elsewhere, but he did not.

Kirk’s questions led him to look at how private investors were being subsidised by public money and who was ultimately benefiting from this arrangement.

One case that he highlighted was the only fund to report results to date – Crescent Capital. Kirk claimed that, according to his calculations, the fund returned less money ( £13.27 million) than it was given to manage ( £14 million), which was made up of £7 million each from Invest NI and private investors.

He contacted the Invest NI chief executive and offered to write a strategic proposal on how to fix the problems in the investment ecosystem.

Alastair Hamilton has now received this report and has responded to Kirk, thanking him for taking the time to contribute to the “wider debate on access to capital”.

Invest NI does not agree with all that Kirk has to say, particularly in relation to his assertions that “the single challenge for Invest NI is that it just doesn’t have the staff or advisers with real experience in start-ups, entrepreneurs, or venture or angel investing”.

But it appears there may be some ground for them to work together, especially when it comes to other mechanisms to “stimulate the seed and early stage venture capital market”.

Kirk’s conclusion is that the investment ecosystem “is broken – still”.

“Some would actually say that it has never really been working. Governments and economists have somewhat rigorous definitions of market failure. I’ll use market failure as an umbrella term for a market that isn’t currently working – whether it was working and is now failed or it was never working.”

Kirk claims that “subordinating public funds to private money has and is having disastrous unintended consequences that perpetuates the market failure”.

However he believes the system can be changed – if the will is there. Kirk has a few ideas on how to solve the problems he says are starving start-ups of cash and preventing young entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas from realising their dreams.

For a start, he would ditch the subordination of public money to stimulate the investment market and find an alternative.

He would also set higher standards for fund managers, fix government-funded programmes designed to motivate and mentor entrepreneurs and look at appointing an investment ecosystem Tsar.

But perhaps his most important recommendation is that Northern Ireland create a 21st-century technology start-up incubator with seed funding capabilities. This could bring local universities and the angel and venture capital communities together in a neutral environment to work for Northern Ireland’s overall economic benefit.

Kirk’s proposals may not deliver all the solutions to the problems facing the North, but he deserves credit for asking the questions nobody else did and for putting his reputation on the line in his effort to get answers.