The purpose of Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos - FINEP (study and project financing institution), a government-owned agency under the Ministry of Science and Technology, is to promote technological development and innovation in Brazil. Its role is to foster support to companies and institutions investing in new products and processes, continuously striving for technological innovation and leadership.

INOVAR PROJECT was launched in May 2000 as a strategic action of FINEP and its aim is to promote the development of small and medium-size businesses based on technology by designing instruments for their financing, especially venture capital.

The development of small and medium-size technology-based companies depends on a technologically active environment that offers technical and human resources and providing room for business enterprise, promotes the entrepreneurial spirit and creates synergies to set up new companies. On the other hand, a financing system is also required to further the development of these companies.

INOVAR PROJECT began from the perception that small and medium-size companies based on the concept of "technological innovation" and consisting of "customers-base-finep", do not find suitable mechanisms in the traditional credit system to finance their growth. Venture capital is one of the most suitable instruments for financing technology-based companies.

Although Brazil has pre-conditions to develop venture capital, this emerging market in the country lacks a comprehensive institutional structure that can bring the various interested agents together, combining their efforts for one common purpose. Acting in partnership with agencies such as IDB/MIF, CNPq, SEBRAE, PETROS, ANPROTEC, SOFTEX and IEL, FINEP, through the Inovar Project, has been seeking to build an institutional framework – a bridge between the companies and investors – which fosters the venture capital investment culture in incipient and emerging technology-based companies, helping to complete the cycle of technological innovation from research to the market.

Moreover, through the INOVAR PROJECT, FINEP has been creating mechanisms that contribute towards the rise and development of technology-based projects based on achievements in Brazilian scientific research. New actions have been adopted in an endeavor to organize the allocation of non-reimbursable resources from FINEP and its partners in transforming innovation projects into technologies that can be taken to the market. The effort is to combine partnerships and instruments that fully support the innovation process: from the laboratory bench to transfer of technologies that can translate the enormous effort of the Brazilian population in economic value and social development in order to be part of the global scientific and technological scenario.

Therefore, INOVAR PROJECT intends to build an institutional environment that helps nurture the activity of venture capital in the country in order to fortify the incipient and emerging Brazilian technology-based companies, contributing, ultimately, to the national technological progress and for to generate jobs and income.

The INOVAR Project includes:
· INOVAR Fund Incubator;
· Brazil Innovation Forum;
· Brazil Venture Capital website;
· INOVAR Business Prospecting and Development Network;
· Development of capacity building and training programs for venture capital agents.